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A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN 
FRANCE 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




"5- ^^ 



A Jewish Chaplain in 
France 



BY 



RABBI LEE J. LEVINGER, M.A., 

Executive Director Young Men's Hebrew Association, New York City, 
formerly First Lieutenant Chaplain United States Army 



WITH A FOREWORD BY 
CYRUS ABLER, Ph.D., 

President of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Philadelphia 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1921 






Copyright, 1921, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and printed. Published October, 1921 



g)CI.A627868 



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TO A GOOD SOLDIER 

WHO SENT ME TO FRANCE 

AND BROUGHT ME BACK AGAIN- 

MY WIFE 



FOREWORD 

The tendency to ^'forget the war" is not 'admir- 
able. Such an attitude is in effect a negation of 
thought. The agony which shook mankind for more 
than four years and whose aftermath will be with 
us in years to come cannot be forgotten unless the 
conscience of mankind is dead. Rabbi Levinger^s 
book is the narrative of a man who saw this great 
tragedy, took a part in it and has thought about it. 

In all the wiars of the United States Jews partici- 
pated, increasingly as their numbers grew appreci- 
ably. They served both as officers and privates 
from Colonial days. But not until the World War 
was a Rabbi lappointed a Chaplain in the United 
States Army 'or Navy for actual service with the 
fighting forces. President Lincoln appointed sev- 
eral Jewish ministers of religion as chaplains to 
visit the wounded in the hospitals, but the tradition 
of the Army up to the period of the Great War, 
rendered the appointment of a Rabbi as chaplain 
impossible. The chaplain had been a regimental 
officer and was always either a Protestant or a 
Catholic. The sect was determined by the majority 
of the regiment. When the United States entered 
the Great War, this was clearly brought out and it 
required an Act of Congress to render possible the 
appointment of chaplains of the faiths not then rep- 



X FOREWORD 

resented in the body of chaplains. Twenty chap- 
lains were thus authorized of whom six were allotted 
to the Synagogue the remainder being distributed 
among the Unitarians, who were not included in the 
Evangelical Churches, and the other smaller Christ- 
ian sects which had grown up in America. 

In order to meet the requirements of the War 
Department and in consonance with the spirit of 
unity which the war engendered, it was necessary 
for the Jewish organizations to create a body which 
could sift the applications for chaplaincies and 
certify them to the War Department, as being 
proper persons and meeting the requirements of the 
law of being regularly ordained ministers of re- 
ligion. 

Judaism in America is far from being a, united 
body. Its differences may not be such as rise to 
the dignity of separate sects but they are consider- 
able in belief and even more pronounced in practice. 
Membership in the various Eabbinical and syna- 
gogue organizations is voluntary and each syna- 
gogue is autonomous. In the face of the awfulness 
of the war, these differences seemed minimized and 
through the cooperation of all the Rabbinical as- 
sociations and synagogue organizations, a Commit- 
tee was created under the general authority of the 
Jewish Welfare Board which examined the creden- 
tials of all Jewish candidates for chaplaincies and 
made recommendations to the War Department. 
So conscientiously did this Committee perform its 
duties that every Babbi recommended as a chaplain 
was conmiissioned. 

As the law exempted ministers of religion and 



FOREWORD XI 

theological students, no person could be drafted for 
a chaplaincy. Every clergyman who served was a 
volunteer. It is therefore greatly to the credit of 
the Jewish ministry in America that one-hundred 
and forty men volunteered for the service. As 
there are probably less than four hundred English 
speaking Rabbis in the United States, many of whom 
would have been disqualified by the age limit and 
some. by their country of origin, the response of the 
American Rabbinate to this call, is a most gratifying 
evidence of their patriotism and of their sense of 
public service. 

Rabbi Levinger 's narrative is his own, in the main 
and properly enough a personal one, but it is rep- 
resentative of the work of some thirty men some of 
whom ministered to the troops who did not go 
abroad whilst others had the opportunity of being 
in the midst 'of the G-reat Adventure. Every one 
who iS'aw the troops overseas, could not doubt the 
real service of the chaplain or the appeal that re- 
ligion made to the men in uniform. However the 
armchair philosophers may have viewed the war, it 
strengthened the faith of the men who were en- 
gaged ; hundreds of thousands of young men turned 
to the chaplain who would have been indifferent to 
him at home. That this was true of Jewish young 
men is certain and if there has been a reaction on 
the part of these young men who returned from the 
war, let it be blamed not so much upon religion, as 
upon the disappointment in the soldiers' minds at 
the attitude of the millions of their fellow citizens 
who remained at home and who want to ' ' forget the 
war." ,The soldier who came back and found that 



Xii FOEEWOKD 

Ms fellow citizens liad their nerves so over-wrought 
by reading of the war in newspapers that they 
immediately entered upon a period of wild extrav- 
agances and wilder pleasure, might very well have 
had his faith, newly acquired if you choose, shaken 
by this evident lack of seriousness on the part of 
his fellow countrymen. 

I shall not commend Eabbi Levinger's book to his 
readers, because if the book does not commend it- 
self, no approbation will. As an officer of the Jew- 
ish Welfare Board whose purpose was to join with 
other organizations in contributing to the welfare of 
the American soldiers and sailors and particularly 
to provide for the religious needs of those of the 
Jewish faith, I want to express the obligations of 
the B'oard to the Eabbis who without experience or 
previous training for the purpose, entered upon this 
service and carried it through with distinction. 
Had it not been for them, the overseas work of the 
Board would have been comparatively limited and 
many a Jewish boy would have been deprived of the 
comforts and solace of his religion. 

I cannot help but think that the chaplain himself 
derived much benefit from his service. In sections 
of the synagogue, las I believe in sections of the 
ohurch, men are on many occasions a minority in 
the congregation and ministration is largely to 
women and children. It meant something for the 
chaplain to have great congregations of men, and of 
young men at that, and I am inclined to think hard- 
ened his mental and even spiritual fiber. It empha- 
sized too the importance of emotion and sentiment 
las against mere rationalism. The worship meant 



FOREWORD XIU 

more than a preachment, and sympathetic human 
contact for a minute was worth a barrel of oratory. 
The fine spirit of liberality which grew up among 
'the chaplains of the various faiths, reflecting as it 
did the comradeship of the men themselves, should 
not and will not be lost. The brotherhood of man 
will be a mere abstraction until individual men can 
act as brothers to one another. The ministers of 
religion, if they have any G^od-given mission above 
lall others, surely have that of leading men, however 
different their physical and spiritual equipment, in- 
to the bonds of a common brotherhood. By this 
way and this way alone will mankind arrive at 
lasting peace. 

'Cyrus Adler. 

October 19, 1921. 



PREFACE 

This book is the result of the profound conviction 
that we are forgetting or ignoring the lessons of 
the World War to Israel, America and humanity. 
During the war such words as morale, democracy, 
Americanism, became a sort of cant — so much so 
that their actual content was forgotten. Now that 
the war is over and their constant repetition is 
discontinued, the grave danger exists that we may 
lose their very real influence. 

These personal experiences and conclusions 
worked out by an army chaplain as a result of his 
overseas service may have some historical value 
also, especially as the same ground has not yet been 
covered by any Jewish chaplain or weKare worker 
in the American Expeditionary Forces. The role 
played by Jews in the army and navy of the United 
States and the Jewish contribution to the morale of 
the forces overseas deserve preservation, both as 
a reminder to ourselves and to the nation. 

When the possibility of this book was first dis- 
cussed in Paris with the late Colonel Harry Cutler, 
Chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board, he spoke 
of writing a foreword for it. Since his lamented 
death. Dr. Cyrus Adler, his successor as acting 
Chairman, has consented to fulfill the same friendly 
task. In addition to Dr. Adler, I acknowledge my 
great indebtedness to Mr. Harry L. Glucksman, Ex- 
ecutive Director of the Jewish Welfare Board, for 



PREFACE 

giving me full access to tlieir records ; to Mr. John 
Goldhaar for his personal reminiscences of the wel- 
fare work overseas; to Captain Elkan C. Voorsanger 
for the invaluable suggestions based upon his vast 
personal experiences; to Justice Irving Lehman, 
President of the Young Men's Hebrew Association, 
for his encouragement and friendly advice; to a 
host of coworkers and friends in both France and 
America for the brilliant deeds and cordial com- 
radeship which are here embodied; and finally to 
my secretary, Miss Hattie Tanzer, for her invaluable 
assistance in seeing the book through the press. 

Much of the material used here has already been 
published in the form of articles appearing at various 
times in the American Hebrew, American Israelite, 
Biblical World, B'nai B'rith News, Hebrew Stand- 
ard, Jewish Forum and Reform Advocate. 

Lee J. Levhstger. 
New York, May, 1921. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I, The Chaplain 's Function 1 

II. The Jewish Holydays op 1918 in the A. E. F. 10 

III. At the Front with the Twenty-seventh 

Division 27 

IV. After the Armistice 52 

V. At the American Embarkation Center . . 69 

VI. The Jewish Chaplains Ovisiseas .... 81 

VII. The Jewish Welfare Board in the A. E. F. 92 

VIII. The Jew as a Soldier 114 

IX. Jew and Christian at the Front .... 132 

X. The Religion of the Jewish Soldier . . 145 

XI. Preaching to Soldiers 160 

XII. Morale and Morals 170 

XIII. The Moral Gain and Loss of the Soldier . . 190 

XIV, The Jewish Soldierr and Judaism . . . 205 

XV. The Jewish Soldier and Anti-Semitism . . 214 



CHAPTER I 

THE chaplain's FUNCTION 

IN giving the story and the opinions of a Jewish 
chaplain in the American Expeditionary Forces, 
some statement is necessary of the work of the 
chaplains as a whole. Chaplains are an essential 
part of the organization of a modern army and it is 
notable that General Pershing repeatedly requested 
that the number of chaplains be doubled in the 
forces under his command. Hardly a narrative of 
soldiers' experiences exists without due place being 
given to the chaplain. In every army in France, 
chaplains were frequently cited for heroism and in 
innumerable instances suffered and died with the 
men in the ranks. 

There are two popular impressions of the pur- 
pose of the chaplain in the military service ; the one 
sees him as a survival of mediaevalism, blessing the 
weapons of the men at arms; the other welcomes 
him as a faint harbinger of a dawning humanitari- 
anism, one of the few men in an army who does not 
have to kill, but is there to save. Some people 
think of the physician and chaplain as having non- 
military work to do, as being a kind of concession 
to the pacific spirit of our generation. 

The actual work of the chaplain is quite as un- 
known to the general public. People wonder what 
he does between weekly sermons, much as they won- 



2 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

der what the minister or rabbi does during the six 
and a half days a week that he is not preaching. In 
fact, I have been greeted with frank or hidden in- 
credulity whenever I admitted that in the army I 
used to preach up to fifteen times a week, but never 
had time to write a sermon. People wonder some- 
times whether the soldiers and sailors can bear so 
much preaching, sometimes what else they demand 
of the chaplain. In fact, to the non-military mind 
the whole subject seems shrouded in mystery. 

To the military man the subject is extremely 
simple. There is no mystery about it. The chap- 
lain is in the army as the physician is, as the thou- 
sands of other non-combatants are, for a strictly 
military purpose. It happens that the non-combat- 
ants may use non-military methods. One may 
drive a locomotive, another carry a stretcher, an- 
other sit in an oflSce and make out papers. All are 
essential to the military machine ; none is in the ser- 
vice for any special humanitarian purpose; none is 
present as a survival of mediaevalism, but all to take 
part in the grim conflict of the twentieth century. 
The work of a physician in the military service is 
the very utilitarian one of saving men's lives and 
returning them to the front. The work of a chap- 
lain is the equally essential and practical one of 
stimulating the morale of the troops. 

Many factors bear upon the morale of a body of 
men, — their physical environment, the strength and 
spirit of their individual units, the temper and abil- 
ity of their leaders. In our army we were very 
fortunate in the activity of various civilian organ- 
izations which labored among the men in the ser- 
vice with the backing of our entire citizenry, or at 



THE CHAPLAIN^'S FUNCTION 3 

least of large and influential groups. The home 
service of the Red Cross and other' non-military 
organizations was of great importance in keeping up 
the morale of the families left behind and through 
them of the men overseas. These important organ- 
izations, however, were under the handicap of doing 
civilian work among soldiers — a handicap whose ser- 
iousness only a soldier himself can ever realize. 
Some imonths after the war was over, the army 
recognized its obligation by appointing morale 
officers for both larger and smaller units, with others 
under them to supervise athletics, entertainment, 
and the like. The civilian organizations then con- 
ducted their activities under the orders of the 
morale officer. 

But nearest of all to the men, because themselves 
a part of the actual military machine, were their own 
chaplains. The chaplain was under the same orders 
as the men, took the same risk, wore the same uni- 
form, and naturally was regarded in every way as 
one of their own. I have even heard old army men 
scorning the new advances of all these new wartime 
societies. ^'We have our own chaplain," they said, 
*'He looks after us all right." 

The chaplain was first the religious guide of his 
men. He knew how to talk to them, for talking, not 
preaching, was the usual tone of the army or navy 
chaplain. He knew how to speak their own ' ' lingo, ' ' 
slang and all. He knew the spiritual appeal which 
was most needed by these boys, transplanted, with all 
their boyishness, into the deep realities which few 
men have had to face. He knew their boyish shy- 
ness of emotion, but with it their deep, immediate 
need of such emotions as the love of home and God, 



4 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

to sustain them amid dangerous hours of duty and 
tempting hours of idleness. This religious need 
alone would have been enough work for the chap- 
lain, even with the intended increase in numbers to 
three per regiment, or one chaplain for every twelve 
hundred men. The need for religion was evident 
in the training camp, the hospital, the transport, the 
trenches; it was evident everywhere, and the chap- 
lain must be everywhere to satisfy it. 

But in addition the chaplain had much welfare 
work of a more general kind to transact in connec- 
tion with the various welfare agencies. One man 
wanted advice about getting married before leav- 
ing for the front ; another had trouble at home and 
desired a furlough; another found himself mis- 
placed in his work and would like a transfer. A 
Jewish boy came in to ask that a letter be written 
to his pious father; the old man had not wanted 
him to enlist, but would feel better if he knew there 
was a rabbi in the camp. Another had a request 
for a small service (a minyan) that he might say 
the memorial prayer on the anniversary of his 
father's death. And still another presented a letter 
from his home community, for he was a fine musi- 
cian and wanted to help out at a concert or a ''sing." 

The many requests for service and the occasional 
offers of service made the circuit constantly from 
a possible teacher to a number of boys with defec- 
tive Enghsh, from a potential comedy team to a 
crowd of eager listeners, from a timid boy with per- 
sonal troubles to their remedy, either by a change 
in circumstances or by convincing the boy himself. 
Sometimes a complaint of religious prejudice had 
to be adjusted which might work grave harm in a 



THE CHAPLAIN ^S FUNCTION" 5 

company unless it were investigated and eitlier 
proved groundless or remedied. 

In a later chapter I shall have an opportunity to 
go into this more deeply. All that I Want to bring out 
here is the important and usually misunderstood 
fact that American boys are restive under authority. 
They object vigorously to the domination of an- 
other's mind over theirs. And this objection too 
often took the form of bitter resentment against 
their officers. Therefore the final and most delicate 
w'ork of the chaplain was to befriend the enlisted 
men against the oppression of their natural enemies 
and tyrants, the line officers. The army often re- 
minds one of a school, the men are so boyish. In 
this regime of stringent rules which must be con- 
stantly obeyed, of short periods of intense and jovial 
recreation, of constant oversight by authority, the 
average enlisted man regarded his commanding 
officer much as the average small boy regards his 
school teacher, from whom he flees to a parent for 
sympathy. 

That role of sympathetic parent was precisely 
the one which the chaplain was called upon to play 
for these boys in uniform. Not that he believed 
everything he was told, or took sides unfairly, or 
was always against authority. Simply that any 
boy could talk to him, as he could only to the excep- 
tional commanding officer, and that every boy was 
sure that the chaplain would help him if he could. 
Being himself an officer, the chaplain could talk to 
officers more freely than any soldier could. And 
not being a line officer, he did not himself issue com- 
mands to any one except his own hard-worked orderly 
or clerk. 



6 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

Thus the chaplain was fortunately placed. If he 
was even partially congenial, he was the one man in 
the army who had not an enemy high or low. The 
soldier looked to him for friendly aid. The oflScer 
referred to him as the great cooperating factor in 
building up the spirit of the troops. 

During the stress of actual warfare the work of 
the chaplain changed in character though not in 
purpose. At the front the chaplain was with his 
boys. During a ^^push" he took his station at the 
first-aid post and worked from there as the first 
place to meet the wounded and dying who needed 
his physical or spiritual aid. He stood beside the 
surgeon on the battle field, he was with the stretcher- 
bearers searching for wounded and bringing them 
to safety. He rode from post to post with the 
ambulance driver, or tramped up to the trenches 
with a ration party. And wherever he went he 
was welcomed for his presence and for the work 
that he tried to do. 

After a battle, when the men retired to rest and 
recuperate, the chaplain had to remain behind. He 
stayed with a group of men for the last terrible 
task of burying the dead. And when, that sad duty 
over, he returned to the troops in rest, he could not 
yield for a time like the others, to delicious languor 
after the ordeal of the battle field, hospital and ceme- 
tary. Then the chaplain must take up his round 
of duties, knowing that after the battle there is many 
a prayer to be said, many a hospital to be visited, 
many a soldier to be befriended. His task has just 
begun. 

The military object of the chaplain is clear, to 
stimulate the morale of the men. But his methods 



THE chaplain's FUNCTION 7 

were most unmilitary. Instead of reminding the 
men of the respect due him as an officer, the wise 
chaplain took his salutes as a matter of course and 
tried to draw the men personally, to make them 
forget all about military distinctions when they 
came to talk to him. The minute a chaplain insisted 
upon his rank as an officer, he lost his influence as 
a minister. Eank was useful to the chaplain in so 
far as it gave him free access to the highest author- 
ities; it became the greatest obstacle to his work 
whenever the boys began to talk to him as *' Lieuten- 
ant" or ''Captain" instead of ''Father" or "Chap- 
lain. ' ' In the military as in the civil field the religi- 
ous message can come only by personality, never by 
command. 

The chaplain appealed for the men whenever he 
felt that the appeal was justified and had some 
chance of success, but never when it would be 
subversive of military discipline. He remembered 
always that he was in the army, a part of a great 
military machine, and that his presence and his 
work were to make the men better, not worse 
soldiers. He met the men personally, with their 
various needs and appeals, and often his best w^ork 
was accomplished in short personal interviews, 
which would not look at all imposing on a monthly 
report, but which imade better soldiers or happier 
men in one way or another. He encouraged every 
effort at recreation for the men, and often took 
part in these efforts himself. This last applies es- 
pecially in the navy, where the chaplain aboard ship 
is the whole staff foT religious, recreational, and 
welfare work. 

In the tmain the work of the chaplain differed 



8 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

little, whatever his religion might be. He was first 
of all a chaplain in the United States Army, and sec- 
ond a representative of his own religious body. 
That means that all welfare work or personal ser- 
vice was rendered equally to men of any faith. The 
only distinction authorized was between Protestant, 
Catholic and Jewish services, and even to these a 
''non-sectarian" service was often added. Where- 
ever I went I was called upon by Jew and non-Jew 
alike, for in the service most men took their troubles 
to the nearest chaplain irrespective of his religion. 
The soldier discriminated only in a special case, such 
as the memorial prayer (kaddish) for the Jewish 
boy, or confession for the Catholic. The office at 
once insured any soldier that he had a protector and 
a friend. 

But as there were only twelve Jewish chaplains in 
the entire American Expeditionary Forces, we were 
instructed to devote our time so far as possible to 
the Jewish men. At the best it was impossible for 
one man to fulfill the constant religious and per- 
sonal needs of the thousand Jewish soldiers scat- 
tered in all the units of an entire division, as I, for 
one, was supposed to do. When instead of one di- 
vision a Jewish chaplain was assigned several, his 
troubles were multiplied and his eifectiveness di- 
vided. Naturally, most of the work of the Jewish 
chaplains had to be devoted to the needs of the Jew- 
ish soldiers, which would not otherwise be satisfied. 

Any one who witnessed the labor and the self-sac- 
rifice of chaplains of all creeds in the American army 
must preface an analysis of their work with a heart- 
felt tribute to the men themselves. I think that 
these men were a unique aggregation — devoted to 
their country and its army, yet loving men of all na- 



THE CHAPLAIN ^S FUNCTION' 9 

tions; loving each his own religion, yet rendering 
service to men of all creeds; bearing each his own 
title, yet sharing equal service and equal friendship 
with ministers of every other faith. I could never 
have accomplished one-half of the work I did with- 
out the constant friendship and hearty support of 
such co-workers as Father Francis A. Kelley and 
Rev. Almon A. Jaynes, of the 27th Division Head- 
quarters, to mention only two notable examples 
among many others. I have seen Father Kelley on 
the battlefield going from aid post to front line 
trench, always most eager to be with the boys when 
the danger was the greatest, always cheerful, yet al- 
ways a priest, doing the noble work which won him 
his medals and his popularity. I have seen the devo- 
tion and the regret which followed Chaplain John A. 
Ward of the 108th Infantry to the hospital in Eng- 
land after he was wounded in performance of duty, 
and the burst of enthusiasm which welcomed his re- 
turn months afterward. I have seen one after an- 
other laboring and serving in the same spirit, 
and I tender to them the tribute of a co-worker who 
knows and admires their great accomplishments. 

The place of morale in the army has not yet been 
studied scientifically. All that can be done as yet is 
to gather such personal and empirical observations 
as mine, which may have bearing on the general 
problem. These experiences were typical and these 
conclusions are not mine alone. They are shared 
by great masses, in many cases by the majority of 
thinking men who had hke experiences. I am here 
setting down the most typical of the incidents which 
I saw or underwent and summing up the little known 
work of the Jewish chaplains and the Jewish Wel- 
fare Board overseas. 



CHAPTER II 

THE JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN THE A. E. F. 

MY experiences as chaplain were as nearly typ- 
ical as possible with any individual. A few 
of the Jewish chaplains saw more actual 
fighting than I did; a few were assigned to the Army 
of Occupation and saw the occupied portion of Ger- 
many. But for nine months I served as chaplain in 
the American Expeditionary Forces, first at the 
headquarters of the Intermediate Section, Service of 
Supply, at Nevers; then with the Twenty- Seventh 
Division at the front and after the armistice at the 
rear; finally at the American Embarkation Center 
at Le Mans. I worked in cooperation with the Jew- 
ish Welfare Board; I saw Paris in war time and 
after ; I had two weeks ' leave in the Riviera. 

My commission as First Lieutenant Chaplain U. 
S. A. came to me on July 4th, 1918 at Great Lakes 
Naval Station, just north of Chicago, where I was 
then serving as Field Representative of the Jewish 
Welfare Board. Two weeks later I reported at 
Hoboken for the trip overseas. There I had the 
good fortune to obtain a furlough of ten days 
before sailing so that I was able to be back in Chi- 
cago just in time to see my new born son and daugh- 
ter. I left when the babies were a week old to report 
back to Hoboken again for my saihng orders and 
found myself at sea during the tense and crucial 
month of August 1918. 

10 



I 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN A. E. F. 11 

The trip was the usual one of those anxious days 
— thirteen days at sea, constant look-out for a sub- 
marine, but finally a mild disappointment when we 
sailed into harbor without even a scare. We car- 
ried our life preservers constantly and waited daily 
for the sudden alarm of a boat drill. Our ship, the 
Balmoral Castle, was one of a convoy of twelve, with 
the usual quota of destroyers accompanying us. 
Two days from England we met a flotilla of de- 
stroyers ; later two ''mystery" ships joined us and in 
the Irish Sea we were greeted by a huge Blimp or 
dirigible balloon. With this escort we sailed down 
the Irish Sea, had a glimpse of Ireland and Scotland 
and finally disembarked at Liverpool. Our first im- 
pression was the flatness of a European metropolis 
when viewed at a distance and its entire lack of the 
jagged sky-line of an American city. 

Our pleasurable anticipations of a view of Liver- 
pool and perhaps a glimpse of London were 
rudely disappointed. We disembarked about noon, 
marched through side streets, which looked like side- 
streets in any of the dirtiest of American cities, lined 
up at a freight station, and were loaded at once on 
waiting trains and started off for Southampton. 
AH that afternoon we absorbed eagerly the dainty 
beauty of the English countryside which most of 
us knew only through literary references. We were 
sorry when the late twilight shut off the view and 
we had to take our first lesson at sleeping while sit- 
ting up in a train, a custom which afterward became 
a habit to all officers in France. 

Daybreak found us at Southampton in the rest 
camp ; evening on the Maid of Orleans, bound across 
the channel. We had not seen England, we had no 



12 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

place to sleep and not too mucli to eat, even sitting 
room on the decks was at a premium, but Tve were 
hastening on our way to the war. At Le Havre we 
were again assigTied to a British rest camp, where 
we appreciated the contrast between the excellent 
meals of the officers' canteen and the primitive 
bunks in double tiers where we had to sleep. After 
two days of this sort of rest and a hasty visit to 
the city in between, I received orders to report to 
the Gr. H. Q. Chaplains' Office at Chaumont. 

My first train journey across France impressed 
me at once with the unique character of the land- 
scape. The English landscape is distinguished by 
meadows, the French by trees. The most realistic 
picture of the English landscape is the fantastic de- 
scription of a checker-board in "Alice in Wonder- 
land." In France, however, one is struck chiefly 
by the profusion and arrangement of trees. They 
are everywhere, alone or in clumps, and of all kinds, 
with often a formal row of poplars or a little wood 
of beeches to make the sky-line more impressive. 
In northern France the houses and barns are all of 
stone, peaked and ^indowless, with gardens that 
seem bent on contrasting as strongly as possible 
with the grayness of the walls. It seems as though 
tiny villages are every few feet, and always with a 
church steeple in the middle. 

In Paris the first man I met was my old friend, 
Dr. H. G. Enelow, of Temple Emanu-El, New York, 
who was standing by the desk in the Hotel Eegina 
when I registered. As the next day was Sunday, 
Dr. Enelow was able to devote some time to me, 
taking me for a long walk on the left bank of the 
Seine, where we enjoyed the gardens of the Luxem- 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IX A. E. F. 13 

bourg and sipped liqueurs at a side-walk cafe at the 
famous comer of Boulevarde St. Michel and Ger- 
main. Paris in war-time was infinitely touching. 
It had all the marks of the great luxury center of 
the world: shops, boulevards, hotels, and show places 
of every kind. But many of the most attractive of 
its tiny shops were closed; the streets at night were 
wrapped in the deepest gloom, with tiny shaded 
lights which were not intended to illuminate but only 
to show the direction of the street. The crowds 
were only a httle repressed in the day-time, for the 
extreme crisis of the summer had just passed, but 
with dusk the streets became entirely deserted. 
Through Dr. Enelow I met also Dr. Jacob Kohn, 
who with Dr. Enelow and Congressman Siegel con- 
stituted the commission of the Jewish "WeKare 
Board to outline its program for overseas work. 
Dr. Enelow introduced me also to Mr. John Gold- 
haar, the secretary of the commission, afterward 
in charge of the Paris Office of the Jewish Welfare 
Board, to whom I shall refer more fully in another 
connection. 

At Chaumont the first man I met was my old 
class-mate of the Hebrew Union College, Chaplain 
Elkan C. Voorsanger, who was there temporarily de- 
tached from the 77th Division to arrange for the 
celebration of the Jewish holydays throughout 
France. He welcomed me, told me something of 
what my work was to be, and hstened to my month- 
old news, which was all fresh to him. For a few 
days I lingered at the chaplains' headquarters at 
the old chateau of Neuilly sur Suisse, not far from 
Chaumont, where thirty chaplains received their 
gas mask training and instruction in front line 



14 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

work, and waited for assignments. The chateau 
was a queer angular mediaeval affair, set off by 
lovely lawns, with the usual rows of straight pop- 
lars all about. A few steps away was a little 
village with a quaint old twelfth century church, 
beautiful in feeling, if not in workmanship. We 
chaplains newly arrived in Prance, most of us young, 
and all eager to be at work, hung on the words of 
our leaders fresh froim the line. We talked much 
of our ideals and our preparation, as most of the 
men were graduates df the Chaplains" Training 
School at Camp Taylor, Kentucky. My assignment 
came very soon to organize and conduct services 
for the Jewish holydays at Nevers, headquarters 
of the Intermediate Section, Service of Supply. 

The entire American area in France had been 
charted out for the purpose of holyday services 
and the central cities designated, either those which 
had French synagogues to receive our men, or 
those points like Nevers where Americans were to 
be found and had to be provided for. I quote the 
official order which carried authority for our 
arrangements. 

"Tours, Sept. 1, 1918. 

"Wherever it will not interfere with mihtary opera- 
tions soldiers of Jewish Faith will be excused from all 
duty and where practicable granted passes to enable them to 
observe Jewish Holidays as follows: from noon Sept. 6th 
to morning of Sept. 9th and from noon Sept. 15th to 
morning' of Sept. 17th. If military necessity prevents 
granting passes on days mentioned provision should be 
made to hold divine services wherever possible." 

This meant that all those had leave who were not 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN A. E. F. 15 

at the time in action or on the move. Chaplain 
Voorsanger, for example, was not able to have any 
service in the 77th Division as his troops were on 
the march on New Year's Day and in action on the 
Day of Atonement. Most of the central points 
designated for Jewish services were important 
cities with French synagogues, — ^Paris, Toul, Bel- 
fort, Dijon, Epinal, Nantes, Eouen, Toursi, Bor- 
deaux and Marseilles. Three of the chief American 
centers had none, so Dr. Enelow was assigned to 
Brest, Dr. Kohn to Chaumont, and I was sent to 
Never s. 

I spent a single busy day in Tours after leaving 
Chaumont. I met the wife and father-in-law of 
Rabbi Leon Sommers and inspected their little 
synagogue with its seventy-five seats. The Rabbi 
was on duty in the French army where he had been 
from the very beginning of the war. I went to the 
army headquarters and arranged for the proper 
notices to be sent out to troops in the district, then 
with two or three Jewish families whom I met I 
discussed arrangements to accommodate the large 
number of Jewish soldiers who would come in. I 
was empowered to offer them the financial assis- 
tance of the Jewish Welfare Board in providing 
such accomlmodations as were possible. 

One surprise of a kind which I afterward came 
to expect, was meeting an old friend of mine from 
Oreat Lakes, a former sergeant in the Canadian 
Army, mustered out of service because of the loss 
of several fingers and now back in France again as 
a representative of the Knights of Columbus. 
When he left Great Lakes for overseas, I had parted 
with one of the two knitted sweaters I possessed, 



16 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FKANCE 

that if I did not see service at least my sweater 
would. Now I met the sweater and its owner again 
for a few brief moments. These fleeting glimpses 
of friends became a delightful but always tense 
element in our army life. Men came and went 
like an ever-flowing stream, now and then pausing 
for a greeting and always hurrying on again. A 
single day sufficed for my work in Tours and then to 
my own city for the holydays. 

Nevers is a historic town of thirty thousand on 
the banks of the Eiver Loire. The streets are as 
wide as alleys and the sidewalks narrow and hap- 
hazard, so that usually one walks in the street, 
whether it goes up hill, down hill, or (as frequently) 
around the corner. But the parks and squares are 
frequent and lovely, and the old buildings have 
a charm of their own, even if it is chiefly in the 
quaintness of their outlines and the contrast of 
their gray with the sunny skies of autumn. The 
air was always cool and the skies always bright. 
I stayed at the Grrand Hotel de 1 'Europe, a rather 
sanall place, which one had to enter by a back door 
through a court. With the men at war, all the work 
was being done by women, while most of the guests 
were American officers on temporary or permanent 
duty at the post. The cathedral (every French 
city seems to have one) is interesting chiefly to the 
antiquarian, as it has several different styles com- 
bined rather inharmoniously, and the tower is not 
at all imposing. 

Of course, a great many Americans were stationed 
in or near the city — railroad engineers, training 
camps of combat units newly arrived in France, 
construction engineers, quartermaster units, and 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN A. E. F. 17 

two great hospital centers. Every company I 
visited, every ward in the hospitals, had at least a 
few Jewish boys, and all of them were equally glad 
to see me and to attend my services. In fact, my 
first clear impression in Prance was that here lay 
a tremendous field for work, crying out for Jewish 
chaplains and other religious workers, and that we 
had such a pitiful force to answer the demand. At 
that time there were over fifty thousand Jewish 
soldiers in the A. E. F. at a very conservative esti- 
mate, with exactly six chaplains and four represen- 
tatives of the Jewish Welfare Board to minister 
to them. When I took up my work at Nevers, I 
was simply staggered by the demands made on me 
and my inabihty to fulfill more than a fraction of 
them. 

At first came the sudden rush of men into the 
city for the first day of Eosh Hashanah, the Jewish 
New Year. The hotels filled up aMost at once ; then 
catoie others who could not find accommodations, 
and still others who had been confined to hospitals, 
had drawn no pay for several months, and could not 
pay for a hotel room or even a shave. The problem 
was solved by two very helpful officers who stayed 
up most of the night until they had provided enough 
room on the barrack floors and enough blankets for 
all who needed them. The accommodations were 
crude, but the men were soldiers and glad to get 
them. I was doubly proud, therefore, that this 
crowd of ours, without official control, coming for 
the festival and therefore released from the inces- 
sant discipline they had become used to, never once 
took advantage of their privileges. We troubled 
the authorities for their sleeping quarters and for 



18 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

special permission to be on the street after nine at 
night — but that was all. Many of the boys may 
have appreciated their leave more than the festival, 
but all justified the confidence shown in them by 
their conduct. 

Imagine the difference between our services in 
France and those to which I have been accustomed 
in our rather tame and formal civilian congrega- 
tions. My congregation there was composed 
almost entirely of men, and those men all very 
young. We were meeting in a strange land, amid 
an ancient but alien civilization, which some of us 
liked and some disliked, but which none of us could 
quite understand. We had no scroll of the Law, no 
ram^s horn, not even a complete prayer-book for the 
festivals. We had no synagogue, and the places 
we used were lent us by people of another faith, 
friends and co-workers, indeed, but with little inter- 
est in our festivals or our religious needs. 

Our services were held in the large Y. M. C. A. 
hut at the chief barracks. The large, bare room 
was turned over to us for certain hours ; the workers 
closed the canteen and attended the services. And 
in return I concluded one of the evening services 
fifteen minutes early so that the regular clientele 
would not miss their semi-weekly motion pictures. 
In fact, I found the Y. M. C. A. here, as everywhere, 
most eager to cooperate with me and to serve the 
Jews as well as the Christians in the army. My can- 
tor for most of the services was Corporal Cohen of 
New York, although several other men volunteered 
for certain portions of the prayers. The head usher 
was Sergeant Wolf, who looked after the hall and the 
seating with the thoroughness characteristic of ser- 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN" A. E. F. 19 

geants everywhere. Among the congregation were 
ten officers, two nurses, and three families of French 
Jews, as well as a mixed group of enlisted men from 
every branch in the army, from every section of 
America and every group of Jewry. The festival 
had caught us in a foreign land, in the service of 
America, and it had brought us together as nothing 
else could have done. 

We wore our hats during the service because that 
was the natural desire of the majority, who were of 
orthodox upbringing. Of course, a soldier naturally 
wears his overseas cap under any circumstances and 
it would have needed a special ruling to bring them 
off. The service was read out of the little prayer 
book circulated by the Jewish Welfare Board, with 
which about a fourth of the congregation were al- 
ready provided from the camps in the States. We 
read the abbreviated Hebrew service, then about half 
of the prayers in English, and had an English ser- 
mon. The only objection to these innovations came 
from the cantor, Corporal Cohen, a young man with 
a traditional Jewish background, who had gathered 
the other Jews in his company every Friday evening 
for a brief service and was generally looked up to 
(although not always followed) as a religious leader. 
My only way of convincing him was to inquire among 
some of the other men as to the number who did not 
understand Hebrew. When he saw that over half of 
the Jewish soldiers had no understanding of the He- 
brew service he withdrew his insistent request for a 
strict traditionalism and I was saved the necessity of 
falling back on my military rank. 

I was much amused after the several services at 
the number of young men who came to me, complain- 



20 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

ing about Cohen's rendering of the services and 
boasting of their own ability. I was able to give 
several of them the chance in the ensuing days and 
found out that it is easy to get a Hebrew reader, 
quite possible to find one who reads with feeling 
and understanding, but utterly impossible to pick 
up in the aitaay a cantor with a trained voice. 

Our arrangements were made under the approval 
of my commanding officer, the senior chaplain of the 
post, and few features of our service were more ap- 
preciated than the address of Chaplain Stull at our 
services on the second day of the festival. I had hes- 
itated to invite him, and was therefore doubly sur- 
prised when he assured me that this was the third 
successive year that he had preached at a Jewish 
New Year service : two years before on the Mexican 
Border, the year before in training camp in the 
States and now in the American Forces in France, 
Chaplain Stull was a regular army chaplain of eigh- 
teen years standing, and his membership in the 
Methodist Episcopal church was less conspicuous 
in his makeup than his long experience in army 
life. His sermon was one of the outstanding events 
of our holy season. His explanation of the vital im- 
portance of the Service of Supply to the army at the 
front came with personal weight for he had just 
come back from the fighting forces to take a promo- 
tion in the rear. His moral interpretation of the 
significance of each man to the whole army 
was the sort of thing that the soldier needs and likes. 

These services were unusual in that they were the 
first holy season which most of the men had spent 
away from home. The war was still on then ; the St. 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN A. E. F. 21 

Mihiel drive took place the day after Rosh Ha- 
shana; the news from the front was usually good 
and always thrilling. We at the rear were deeply 
stirred. Some of us had been wounded and were 
now recovering; some were in training and were 
soon to leave for the front ; some were in the S. 0. S. 
permanently. But the shadow of war was dark up- 
on us all. We were in the uncertainty, the danger, 
the horror of it. We felt a personal thrill at the 
words of the prayers, — '^Who are to live and who to 
die; who by the sword and who by fire." We 
recited with personal fervor the memorial prayer for 
our fallen comrades. Many among us were eager 
to give thanks at recovery from wounds. There- 
fore, the desire for a religious observance of our 
solemn days was all the greater. Men came 
in from a hundred miles, often walking ten miles to a 
train before they could ride the rest. 

Brothers, long separated, often met by chance, 
soon to separate again for an unknown future. I 
remember two — one a veteran of two battles, now 
convalescing at a hospital, the other newly arrived 
from the States and still in training. They met on 
Eosh Hashanah, each ignorant of the other's where- 
abouts and the veteran not even knowing whether 
his brother had arrived in France. The touching 
scene of their reunion had its humorous side too, for 
the wounded soldier from the hospital naturally had 
not a franc in his possession, and the boy from the 
States had enough money for a real holiday and 
had reserved a hotel room with a luxurious French 
bed. He was thus able to act as host for two happy 
days and nights. But on Yom Kippur when the 



22 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

wounded soldier came again his brother was not 
there. His unit had been ordered to the front and 
I do not know whether they ever met again. 

War had us all in its iron grip. I, for* one, 
expected soon to have imy request granted that I 
be assigned to a combat division. Not that I over- 
looked the need for Jewish work in the S. 0. S., but 
the most pressing need at that time was at the front, 
and I was looking forward to taking up the more 
exacting duties there. 

The three Jewish families of the city added a 
pathetic touch, for they were glad indeed to attend a 
Jewish service and for the sake of the soldiers were 
willing to sit through our English additions. Their 
situation seemed similar to that of most recent im- 
migrants of the United States; the parents spoke 
both Yiddish and French, the young people like 
ours in America, spoke chiefly the language of the 
country. It was both ludicrous and touching to see 
American soldiers competing to exchange the few 
French words they knew with the two or three 
Jewish daughters. It was often their first chance 
for a word with a girl of their own class, certainly 
with a Jewish girl, since they had left America. 
And the fact that the girl with her familiar ap- 
pearance could not communicate with them on a 
conversational basis, did not seem to impede their 
relations in the least. The isolated condition of 
these French Jews in a city of 30,000 can only be 
compared to that of American Jews in a country vil- 
lage. 

While at Never s I could noti overlook the op- 
portunity to visit the two great hospital centers at 
Mars and at Mesves sur Loire. I visited from 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN A. E. F. 23 

ward to ward in both of them, paying special atten- 
tion to the Jewish boys and finding always plenty of 
occasion for favors of a hundred different kinds. 
At that time we were short of chaplains of all de- 
nominations in the artaiy, so that even the hospitals 
had not enongh to minister fully to their thousands 
of sick and wounded, while the convalescent camps 
with their hundreds of problems were almost un- 
cared for in this respect. 

At Mars I held a service on Friday night which 
was fairly typical of conditions in France. The 
service was announced as a Jewish religious ser- 
vice, but on my arrival I found the Red Cross room 
crowded with men of every type, including four 
negroes in the front row. Evidently it was the 
only place the men had outside the wards, so they 
came there every night for the show, movie, or 
service which might be provided. They were not 
merely respectful to the service and the minority of 
Jews who took part in it. They were actively re- 
sponsive to the message I brought them of con- 
ditions in America and the backing the people at 
home were giving them in their great work abroad. 
These wounded men from the lines, these medical 
corpsmen who might never see the front, were alike 
eager to feel the part they personally were playing 
in the igreat^ chaotic outlines of the World-wide 
struggle. And they responded to a Jewish service 
with an interest which I soon found was typical of 
the soldier, in his restless attention, his open- 
mindedness, his intolerance of cant but love of 
genuine religion. 

The meetings and partings of war-time came home 
to me several times at Nevers. I was called to see a 



24 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FRANCE 

young man in the hospital, suffering from spinal 
meningitis. I found him a highly intelligent boy 
from Chicago who knew a number of my old friends 
there. I was able to do a few minor favors for him 
such as obtaining his belongings and notifying his 
unit that he was not absent without leave, but simply 
locked up in the contagious ward. But on his recov- 
ery the news went to his family in Chicago to get in 
touch with my wife and a friendship was established 
on a, genuine basis of interests in common. At an- 
other time I was approached at the Y. M. C. A. by 
one of their women workers who had heard my name 
announced. She turned out to be a Mrs. Campbell of 
my old home town, Sioux City, Iowa, and an acquain- 
tance of my mother through several charity boards 
of which they both were members. She was acting 
as instructor in French and advisor to the American 
soldiers in Nevers, while her husband. Prof. Camp- 
bell of Morningside College, was on the French front 
with the French auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A. 

Another interesting incident was my meeting with 
Mr. Julius Eosenwald of Chicago, then touring 
France as a member of the National Council of 
Defense. The Y. M. C. A. secretary asked me to 
introduce him to a soldier audience in one of their 
huts. The first day I came, however, Mr. Eosenwald 
was delayed and the boys had to put up with a new 
film of Douglas Fairbanks in his stead, like good 
soldiers accepting the substitution gladly enough. 
On the second day Mr. Eosenwald liimself was there 
and I had the pleasure of introducing him to an 
audience of about five hundred soldiers, as varied 
a group as ever wore the American unifonm. His 



JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN A. E. F. 25 

simple personal appeal was a direct attempt to build 
up the morale of the troops through a hearty report 
of the interest and enthusiasm of the people at home. 
He called for a show of hands of the home states of 
the different men, then responded by reading letters 
and telegrams from governors and other local of- 
ficials. Mr. Eosenwald was one of the very few of- 
ficial travelers in France whose trip was not merely 
informative to himself but also valuable to the army. 
We in the army grew to dislike "joy riders" so 
heartily that it is a positive pleasure to mention 
such a conspicuous exception. 

Another duty typical of the variety of tasks which 
welcomed me as a chaplain, was to conduct the 
defense of a Jewish boy at a general court martial. 
He asked to see me during the holydays, told me his 
story, and I stayed over in Nevers a few days to act 
as his counsel. Since that time I have frequently 
been called on for advice in similar cases, for an 
army chaplain has almost as many legal and medical 
duties as strictly religious ones. In this particular 
case circumstantial evidence seemed to show that 
the young man had stolen and sold some musical 
instruments from an army warehouse where he 
worked. He was only a boy, a volunteer who had 
falsified his age in order to enlist. According to 
his own story he was partially involved in the case, 
acting ignorantly as agent for the real criminal. 

The trial was quite fair, bringing out the circum- 
stantial evidence against him, and his sentence was 
las low as could possibly be expected. So, with mem- 
ories of friendships made, of work accomplished, of a 
new world opening ahead, I left Nevers on September 



26 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

20tli after only eighteen days of service. I had to 
report at Chaumont again to receive my orders to 
join the 27th Division. 

For two months after that no Jewish chaplain Was 
stationed in the Intermediate Section, which covered 
the entire central part of Prance and contained 
many thousands of American troops, including 
everywhere a certain proportion of Jews. Then 
Chaplain Eabinowitz reported at Nevers tem- 
porarily and served for his entire time in France in 
various points in the Intermediate Section, at 
Nevers, Blois and at St. Aignan. 

I had been thrust into the midst of this tre- 
mendous, crying need for service of every kind, 
religious, personal and military. I went to my 
division to find the same or greater need, as the 
situation was alVays more tense at the actual front. 
For three weeks I had ministered as much as I 
could to the Jewish men scattered about Nevers and 
all through the central portion of France. Now I 
left them for good. Their usual greeting on meet- 
ing me had been, ''You are the first Jewish chaplain 
or worker we have met on this side.'^ And un- 
fortunately, the same greeting was addressed to me 
every time I came to a new unit or city until the 
very day I left France. The need among these two 
million soldiers was so tremendous that a hundred 
times our resources would not have been sufficient. 
As it was, we made no pretense at covering the 
field, but simply did day labor wherever we were 
stationed, serving the soldiers, Jews and Christians 
alike, and giving our special attention to the re- 
ligious services and other needs of the Jewish men. 



CHAPTEE III 

AT THE FEONT WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISIOIT 

I REACHED my division on the first of October, 
1918, after a tedious ten days on the way. I 
traveled most of the way with Lieutenant Colo- 
nel True, whom I met on the train coming out of 
Chaumont. I found that the higher ranking officers 
invariably approached the chaplains not as officers 
of inferior rank but as leaders of a different kind, 
much as a prominent business man treats his minis- 
ter in civil life. Colonel True was a regular army 
man of long standing who was being transferred 
from another division to the Twenty-Seventh. 
When we arrived at the Hotel Richmond, the 
Y. M. C. A. hotel for officers in Paris, we found only 
one room available with a double bed, and so for the 
first time in my life I had the honor of sleeping 
with a Lieutenant Colonel. The honor was a doubt- 
ful one as he had at the time a slight attack of ''flu" 
brought on from exposure and a touch of gas in the 
recent St. Mihiel drive. Colonel True had received 
his promotion from a majority and his transfer 
before the drive, but had not reported until he had 
gone through the whole fight at the head of his bat- 
talion. I mention this not as a striking, but strictly 
as a typical proceeding on the part of the average 
American officer. 

For a few days we were held at the Replacement 

27 



28 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FRANCE 

Camp at Eu in Normandy — an idyllic spot within 
sight of the English Channel, surrounded by gentle 
hills. While there I made several trips to Treport, 
a favorite summer resort on the Channel before 
the war. It is a quaint little fishing village 
with a typical modern summer resort superimposed. 
The old stone Norman cottages with their high roofs 
always had a touch of decoration somewhere, in 
mosaic, paint or stained glass, different from the 
plainer architecture of Central France. The mod- 
ern part consists of several beautiful hotels and a 
number of cheap restaurants and curio shops. Of 
course, the hotels were all used by the British Army 
as hospitals at this time. I visited Base Hospital 16, 
a Philadelphia Unit, which was loaned to the British. 
I had a delightful talk with our Red Cross Chaplain 
and made a tour of many of the wards. The patients 
were almost all British with a few Americans from 
the August campaign in Flanders. Among the rest 
I met about a dozen Jewish boys, English and 
Australian, who were naturally delighted by the 
rare visit of a Jewish Chaplain. The eight Jewish 
Chaplains in the British Expeditionary Forces were 
attached to the various Army Headquarters, and so 
had to cover impossible areas in their work. The 
nearest one to Treport was Rabbi Geffen at 
Boulogne with whom I afterward came into com- 
munication, and from whom I obtained a large num- 
ber of the army prayer books arranged by the Chief 
Rabbi of England for use in the British Forces. 

Hospital visiting is dreary work, especially when 
there is action going on from which one is separated. 
The work is exhausting physically, walking up and 
down the long wards and stopping by bedsides. It 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 29 

is especially a drain on the nerves and sympathies, 
to see so many sick and mutilated boys — boys in age 
most of them, certainly boys in spirit — and giving 
oneself as the need a;rises. And in a hospital so 
many men have requests. They are helpless and it 
is always impossible to have enough visitors and 
enough chaplains for them. I was glad to be useful 
at Treport but gladder still when the word came 
through to release all troops in the Second Corps 
Replacement Depot. 

We were loaded on a train, the soldiers in box-cars 
of the familiar type (''40 men or 8 horses") with 
the little group of officers crowded together in a 
single first-class coach. Broken windows, flat 
wheels and no lights showting — ^we were beginning 
to feel that we were in the war zone. From Eu to 
Peronne took from 4:30 a. m. to 9:30 p. m. with 
three changes of trains and ten additional stops. 
We got only a short view of the railroad station at 
Amiens, at that time almost completely destroyed. 
Our division was then in the British area on the 
Somme sector, and at the time of our arrival they 
had just come out of the great victory at the Hinden- 
burg Line. 

Our first ruined city was Peronne, which will 
never leave my memory. The feeling of a ruined 
town is absolutely indescribable, for how can one 
imagine a town' with neither houses nor people, 
where the very streets have often been destroyed? 
This situation contradicts our very definition of a 
town, for a town is imade of streets, houses and 
people; no imagination can quite grasp the reality 
of war and ruin without its actual experience. And 
Peronne was much more striking than most cities in 



30 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" FRANCE 

the war zone; it had been fought through six 
different times, and its originally stately public 
buildings showed only enough to impress us with the 
ruin that had been wrought. Only one wall of one 
end of the church was standing, with two fine Gothic 
arches, only one side of the building on the square 
and so on through the whole town. We became 
inured to the sight of ruined villages later on, but 
the first shock of seeing Peronne will be indehble. 
The headquarters of the division were then located 
at the Bois de Buire, about ten miles out, though for 
almost a half day we could find nobody to give us 
exact directions. At last Lieutenant Colonel H. S. 
Stemberger, the division quartermaster, put in an 
appearance and offered to take me and Lieutenant 
Colonel True up to headquarters in his car. The 
rest of our party had all wandered off by then in the 
direction of their various units. Colonel Stem- 
berger was the highest ranking officer at the time 
among the thousand Jews in the Twenty- Seventh 
Division. Lieutenant Colonel Morris Liebman of 
the 106th Infantry, also a Jew, had been killed in 
action in Flanders six weeks before, a loss which was 
very deeply felt in his regiment. Colonel Stem- 
berger was one of the popular staff officers of the 
division owing to his indefatigable labors for the 
welfare of the boys. His great efforts at the 
expense of much personal risk and of serious damage 
to his health were directed to get the food up to the 
front on time. While I was with the division, 
Colonel Stemberger proved both a staunch personal 
friend and an active ally in my work. 

It took more than a day to become acquainted 
with the camouflaged offices in the woods. Small 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 31 

huts, with semicircular iron roofs covered with 
branches, were scattered about among the trees. 
Some of them had signs, Division Adjutant, Com- 
manding Greneral, and the rest; others were billets. 
I invariably lost my way when I went to lunch and 
wandered for some minutes before finding "home." 
"Home" was a hut exactly like the rest, where the 
French mission and the gas officer had their offices 
during the day and where six of us slept at night. I 
fell heir to the cot of one of the interpreters then 
home on leave, Georges Levy, who afterward became 
one of my best friends. My baggage had disap- 
peared on the trip, so that I had only my hand bag 
with the little it could hold. My first need, naturally, 
was for blankets to cover the cot. I collected these 
from various places, official and otherwise, until the 
end of the month found me plentifully provided. I 
must admit that the first cool nights in the woods 
forced me to sleep in my clothes. Naturally, my first 
task was to wire for my baggage, but it had com- 
pletely vanished and did not return for four long 
months. Everybody lost his possessions at some 
time during the war; I was unique only in losing 
them at the outset and not seeing them until the 
whole need for them was over. 

The boys had just come out of the line, worn out, 
with terrible losses, but after a great victory such 
as occurs only a few times in any war. They had 
broken the Hindenburg Line, that triple row of 
trenches and barbed wire, with its concrete pill- 
boxes, its enfilading fire from machine guns, its in- 
tricate and tremendous system of defenses. I 
crossed the line many times during the month that 
followed and never failed to marvel that human 



32 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN- IN FEANCE 

beings could ever have forced it. The famous tun- 
nel of the St. Quentin Canal was in our sector, too, 
as well as part of the canal itself. The villages 
about us were destroyed so completely that no single 
roof or complete wall was standing for a shelter 
and the men had to live in the cellars. 

One wall always bore the name of the former 
village in large letters, which became still larger 
and more striking in the territory near the Hinden- 
burg Line, so long occupied by the Germans. I 
used to repay the generous Tommies for their rides 
on the constant stream of trucks (we called them 
''lorries," like the English) by translating the num- 
eTous German signs at railroad crossings and the 
like, about which they always had much curiosity. 

One could travel anywhere on main roads by wait- 
ing until a truck came along and then hailing it. If 
the seat was occupied there was usually some room 
in the rear, and the British drivers were always 
glad to take one on and equally glad to air their views 
on the war. When one came to a cross road, he 
jumped off, hailed the M. P. (Military Police) for di- 
rections and took the next truck which was going in 
the proper direction. In that way I have often trav- 
eled on a dozen trucks in a day, with stop-overs and 
occasional walks of a few miles to fill in the gaps. 
Between a map, a compass and the M. P.'s, we al- 
ways managed to circulate and eventually find our 
way home again. 

We saw the heavy guns lumbering on their way 
to the front, the aeroplanes humming overhead like 
a swarm of dragon-flies. Day and night we could 
hear the rumble of guns like distant thunder, while 
at night the flashes showed low on the horizon like 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 33 

heat lightning. Our salvage depot was at Tincourt 
at the foot of the hill, and when I went over there 
Corporal Klein and Sergeant Friedlander were 
quick to repair gaps in my equipment. One night 
I witnessed the division musical comedy (the 
'^'Biroadway Boys") in an old ham at Templeux 
le Fosse, where we walked in the dark, found the 
place up an alley and witnessed a really excellent 
performance with costumes, scenery and real or- 
chestra. In the middle of an act, an announcement 
would be made that all men of the third battalion, 
108th Infantry, should report back at once, and a 
group of fellows would rise and file out for the five- 
mile hike back in the darkness : they were to move up 
to the front before morning. 

My chief effort during those few hurried days 
was to get into touch with the various units so that 
I could be of some definite service to them when they 
went into action. Unfortunately, almost every time 
I arranged for a service and appeared to hold it the 
*' outfit" would already be on the move. The best 
service I held was at the village of Buire, where 
about forty boys gathered together under the trees 
among the ruined houses. They were a deeply de- 
votional group, told me about their holyday services 
conducted by a British army chaplain at Doulens, 
about their fallen comrades for whom they wanted to 
repeat the memorial prayers, and about their own 
narrow escapes for which they were eager to offer 
thanks. They had the deep spiritual consciousness 
which comes to most men in moments of great peril. 

I managed to reach most of the infantry regiments, 
however, by hiking down from the woods and some- 
times catching a ride. Everywhere was action. It 



34 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FKANCE 

was the breathing space between our two great 
battles of the war. Every unit Was hoping and ex- 
pecting a long rest. But that hope could not be 
fulfilled. The intensity of the drive against the en- 
tire German line was beginning to tell and every 
possible unit was needed in the line to push ahead. 
So the rest of the Twenty- Seventh Division was 
brief indeed. Every regiment was starting for the 
front with no replacements after the terrifi.c 
slaughter of two weeks before, with very little new 
equipment and practically no rest. And the front 
was now further away than it had been. The suc- 
cess of the allied forces meant longer marches for 
our tired troops. 

All the villages were devasted in this area. It 
was the section between Peronne and the old Hinden- 
burg Line. Not until we came to the German side 
of the Hindenburg Line did we find the villages 
in any sort of repair. The men lived in cellars 
without roofs, in rooms without walls or sometimes 
in barracks which were constructed by either of the 
opposing armies during the long years of the strug- 
gle. Of course, many shelters existed such as our 
'^ elephant huts" in the woods or the perfect honey- 
comb of dugouts in the sides of the quarry at Tem- 
pleux le Gerard. 

One day I "lorried" up to the division cemeteries 
near the old battlefield, which were being laid out 
by a group of chaplains with a large detail of en- 
listed men. I saw the occasional Jewish graves 
marked with the Star of David and later was able to 
complete the list and have all Jewish graves in our 
division similarly marked. I got to know the coun- 
try about Bellicourt and Bony, where our heaviest 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 35 

fighting had taken place. I heard the story of the 
eight British tanks, lying helpless at the top of 
the long ridge near Bony, where they had run upon 
a mine field. I got to know the ''Ausies,'^ always 
the best friends and great admiration of our soldiers, 
with their dashing courage and reckless heroism, 
and the ''Tommies," those steady, matter-of-fact 
workmen at the business of war, whom our boys 
could never quite understand. 

Finally our headquarters moved forward, too. I 
jumped out of a colonel's car one dark night and 
hunted for an hour and a half among the hills before 
I found the chalk quarry where they now were hidden 
from prying air scouts. At last, finding the quarry, 
I met a boy I knew, who took me to the dugout where 
the senior chaplain was sleeping. I crawled into 
a vacant bunk, imade myself at home and left the 
next morning for good. The quarry did not appeal 
to me when wet ; one was too likely to slide from the 
top to the bottom and stay there ; and I had no desire 
to test its advantages when dry. The next time I 
came back to headquarters they were in the village 
of Joncourt, beyond the Hindenburg Line, in terri- 
tory which we had released from the Germans. The 
chief attraction of Joncourt was an occasional roof 
— ^of course, there were no windows. The cemetery 
had been used as a ''strong point" by the retreating 
Germans, who had scattered the bodies about and 
used the little vaults as pill-boxes in which to mount 
machine guns. And our message center was located 
in a German dugout fully fifty feet underground; 
evidently plenty of precautions had been taken 
against allied air raids. In fact, from this point 
on every house in every village had a conspicious 



36 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

sign, telling of the Fliegerschutz for a certain 
number of men in its cellar. In addition, the placard 
told the number of officers, men and horses which 
could be accommodated with billets on the premises. 
Evidently, the Germans in laying out their per- 
manently occupied territory, went about it in their 
usual business-like fashion. 

But between my glimpses of these various head- 
quarters, I was at the front with the troops going 
into the trenches and had had a glimpse of war. My 
first experience under fire was in some woods near 
Maretz, where I spent part of the night with one 
battalion, as they paused before going into the 
trenches. I finished the night on the floor of a house 
in the village, having grown accustomed enough to 
the sound of the shells to sleep in spite of it. Like 
most people I had wondered how one feels under 
fire, and experiencd a queer sensation when I first 
heard the long whine of a distant shell culminating 
in a sudden explosion. Now I realized that I was 
under fire, too. But I speedily found that one feels 
more curiosity than fear under long-distance fire; 
real fear comes chiefly when the shells begin to land 
really near by. I was to experience that, too, a little 
later. In fact, I found out soon that every soldier 
is frightened ; a good soldier is simply one who does 
his duty in spite of fear. 

Then a report came in that Chaplain John Ward, 
of the 108th Infantry, had been seriouslj^ wounded 
and I was sent to take his place with the unit. In 
a push the chaplain works with the wounded ; after 
it, with the dead. Of many sad duties at the front, 
his is perhaps the saddest of all. My first station 
was with the third battalion headquarters and aid 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 37 

post in a big white house set back in a little park 
in the tiny village of Escaufourt, a mile or so be- 
hind the lines. Captain Merrill was in command 
of the battalion and one could see how the work and 
responsibility wore on him day by day, reducing the 
round, cheerful soldier for the time almost to a 
whispering, tottering old man. But his spirit held 
him to the task ; he slept for only a few minutes at a 
time, and then was back at work again. A con- 
scientious man can have no more exacting duty than 
this, to care for the lives of a thousand men. 

We were under constant fire there, though not 
under observation, but the little ambulances ran up 
to the gate of the chateau for the wounded, who had 
to walk or be carried in and out from the house to the 
gate. We ate upstairs in the stately dining room 
at times, though we usually ate and always slept 
in the crowded cellar where the major and his staff 
were housed. There eight or nine of us w'ould sit on 
our brick seats and sleep with our backs against the 
wall, being awakened from time to time by a mes- 
senger coming in or by the ringing of the field tele- 
phone in the comer. The telephone operator was 
always testing one or another connection, day 
and night, for the emergency when it would be 
needed. 

One night companies H and I of the 108th Infantry 
were almost completely wiped out by gas. They 
were in low lying trenches by the side of the canal 
under a constant fire of gas shells, while the damp 
weather kept the dangerous fumes near the ground. 
They had no orders to evacuate to a safer post and 
no human being can live forever in a gas mask, so 
one after another the men yielded to temptation, took 



38 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" FEANCE 

off their masks for momentary relief, and inhaled 
the gas-laden air. All evening and night they kept 
coming in by twos and threes to our aid post, the 
stronger ones walking, the rest on stretchers. 
Their clothing reeked of the sickeningly sweet odor. 
The rooim was soon full of it, so that we had to 
blow out the candles and open the door for a few 
minutes to avoid being gassed ourselves. There 
were three ambulances running that night to the 
Main Dressing Station, and I made it my task to 
meet each car, notify the doctor and bring the gassed 
and wounded men out to the ambulance. Most of 
them were blinded for the time being by the effect 
of the gas. No light was possible, as that would 
have drawn fire at once. Every ten minutes through 
the night our village was shelled, and in walking 
the forty or fifty yards through the park to the gate, 
I had to make two detours with my blinded men to 
avoid fresh shell-holes made that very afternoon. I 
admit feeling an occasional touch of panic as I led 
the big helpless fellows around those fresh shell 
holes and helped them into the ambulances. The 
final touch came when a youngster of perhaps seven- 
teen entered the aid post alone, walking painfully. 
"What outfit are you from, sonny?" was my natural 
greeting. ' ' I am the last man left in Company H, ' ' 
was the proud reply. 

This was the sort of fatal blunder which seemed 
to occur once in every command before the lesson 
was learned that gas-filled trenches need no de- 
fending, and that troops, safely withdrawn a hun- 
dred yards or more, can be moved forward again 
quickly enough the moment the gas lifts. The Eng- 
lish had had the same lesson more than once until 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 39 

they learned it thoroughly; so had the Germans; 
now our armies, with their examples before us, had 
to learn it again through the suffering of our own 
soldiers. Our division was not the only one in which 
the same or a similar blunder cost the men so dearly, 
for I have read the same incident of more than one 
unit on other parts of the American line, and have 
had them verified by officers who were present at 
those other catastrophes. In the art of war the in- 
struction ofi the generals costs the lives of the 
soldiers. 

We had the peculiar experience of seeing the vil- 
lage which we had entered in good condition crum- 
bling about us under the enemy fire. Even the win- 
dows were intact when we reached it ; the Germans 
were just out, and our artillery had been outstripped 
completely in the forward rush. Under the con- 
stant pounding of back area fire, designed to prevent 
ammunition and supplies coming up to the line un- 
molested, our little village lost windows, roofs and 
walls, disintegrating steadily into a heap of ruins. 

One evening we were assigned the task of evacuat- 
ing some old French peasants who had clung to 
their little homes through all the world-shaking 
catastrophe. At last they had to leave, as the danger 
to them was too direct and, in addition, they con- 
stituted a hidden menace to our troops in case even 
one of them had been left behind as a spy. I went 
with a party of Australians and a few of our men to 
the houses in the outskirts of the town, where the 
greatest danger existed. I remember the utterly 
disconsolate attitude of two old men and a little 
old woman in one of them, when they were told 
they had to leave. They seemed numb in the midst 



40 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

of all the rush and roar of warfare. Their little pos- 
sessions were there, they were of the peasant type 
and had probably never been out of the district in 
their lives. The advance of the enemy in 1914 had 
been accompanied by no fighting near their homes, 
and now the allied victory, the one hope of their 
country, was the one thing that bore destruction to 
their little village and tore them away from the spot 
where they were rooted. 

One evening I joined a ration party going for- 
ward and visited the lines and advanced headquar- 
ters at St. Souplet, hearing the peculiar whistle 
of a sniper 's bullet pass me as I made my way back 
after dusk. One of the boys carrying a heavy bag 
of hardtack had a sore shoulder, not quite well 
from a previous wound. So I shouldered his bag 
for a decidedly weary mile of skulking along a 
sunken road and hurrying across the occasional 
open spaces. When we came to his unit I was 
glad to turn the bag over to him ; I felt no pleasure 
in such lumpy burden, and would far rather have 
worn out my shoulder with something more ap- 
preciated by the boys than hardtack, — the one thing 
which nobody enjoyed but which was eaten only 
because they were desperately hungry. On the night 
of October 16th we all moved over, preparatory to 
the push across the Selle River. We installed our- 
selves in the large building at the cross roads, where 
the aid post was stationed. I joined a group of 
sleepers on the cellar floor, picking my way in the 
darkness to find a vacant spot. My trench coat on 
the plank floor made a really luxurious bed. 

The next morning, October 17th, I was awakened 
at 5:20 by the barrage; the boys were going over; 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 41 

the battle of the Selle Eiver had begun. By six 
o'clock the wounded began to flow in, at first by 
twos and threes, then in a steady stream. They 
came walking wearily along or were carried on the 
shoulders of German prisoners or occasionally by 
our own men. As we were at the crossroads, we got 
most of the wounded, English, German and Ameri- 
can, as well as a great deal of the shelling with 
which back areas are always deluged during an at- 
tack. In this case, our post was just behind the 
lines at first, but it became a back area within a 
very few days owing to the dash and brilliancy 
of our tired troops when the orders came to go over 
the top. They stormed the heights across the 
stream after wading it in the first rush, and then 
went on across the hills and fields. 

Our attack was a part of the campaign of the 
British Third Army and a small element in the great 
* ' push ' ' going on at that time over the entire front. 
Our task with that of the Thirtieth Division on our 
right was to cross the Selle Eiver and advance 
toward the Sambre Canal. On our left were British 
troops, while we were supported by Australian ar- 
tillery and the British Air Service. In our first 
great battle, that of the Hindenburg Line, the '*Au- 
sies" had acted as the second wave, coming up 
just in time to save some of the hard pressed units 
of our Division and to complete the success of our 
assault. So we knew them well enough and were 
glad indeed to have their excellent artillery to put 
over the barrage for our second attack. 

The Australians and, in fact, all the British Colo- 
nial troops, had much more in common with the 
American soldiers than had the British troops them- 



4:2 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" FRANCE 

selves. They were like our men, young, hardy, dash- 
ing. They were all volunteers. They had a type 
of discipline of their own, which included saluting 
their own officers when they wanted to and never 
saluting British officers under any circumstances. 
I took a natural pride in hearing of their command- 
ing officer. Lieutenant Greneral Sir John Monash, 
who held the highest rank of any Jew in the war. 
It was no little honor to be the commander of those 
magnificent troops from Australia. 

Meanwhile we were busy at the first aid post. I 
found myself the only person at hand who could 
speak any Grerman, so I took charge of the door, with 
a group of prisoners to carry the wounded in and 
out and load them in the ambulances. As soon as 
my dozen or so prisoners were tired out I would send 
them on to the ''cage" and pick up new men from 
the constant stream flowing in from the front. Our 
opponents here were chiefly Wurtembergers, young 
boys of about twenty, although one regiment of Prus- 
sian marines was among them. Among the first 
prisoners were two German physicians who offered 
to assist ours in the work. They worked all day, 
one in our aid post, the other in that of the 107th 
Infantry, side by side with our surgeons and doing 
excellent work for Americans and Germans alike. 
They picked their own assistants from among their 
captured medical corpsmen, and were strictly pro- 
fessional in their attitude throughout. One of them 
was Dr. Beckhard, a Jew from Stuttgart, with whom 
I had a few snatches of conversation and whom I 
should certainly like to meet again under more con- 
genial circumstances. I was amused in the midst 
of it all when the doctor noticed his brother, an ar- 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 43 

tilleryman, coming in as one of the endless file of 
stretcher bearers, carrying wounded in gray or olive 
drab. The doctor asked me whether he might take 
his brother as one of his assistants for the day. 
''Is he any good?" I asked. "Oh, yes," was the 
answer, "as good as any medical orderly." So I 
gave permission and the two, together with a real 
medical orderly and another young prisoner as in- 
terpreter, ran one room of the first aid post in their 
own way. I kept an American soldier on guard there 
chiefly to be prepared for any eventualities; as a 
matter of fact the German surgeons treated Ameri- 
can wounded and American surgeons treated Ger- 
man wounded with the same impartial spirit. The 
two physicians joined the other prisoners at the 
end of the day bearing letters of appreciation written 
by Captain Miller, the surgeon in charge of our 
post. 

About a year later when communication with Ger- 
many was opened again, I found that this chance 
meeting at the front proved an odd means of com- 
munication with my German cousins. When Dr. 
Beckhard returned to Stuttgart he lectured on his 
experiences at the front, mentioning among other 
things that he had met an American Rabbi by the 
name of Levinger. Some distant relatives of mine 
living in the city heard the talk and wrote to a 
nearer branch of the family living in another part 
of Wurtemberg, so that shortly after the actual ex- 
perience they knew of my being in the army and 
serving at the front. 

Only the small Ford ambulances could come as 
near the front as our post, while the larger ones 
came only to the Advanced Dressing Station at 



44 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN^ IN FRANCE 

Busigny. These smaller ambulances were unable to 
accommodate the constant stream of gassed and 
wounded men coming from the lines. Those who 
had minor wounds, especially in the arms, had to 
be directed along the proper road according to that 
ironical term, ''walking wounded." Cases which 
in civil life would be carried to an ambulance, given 
full treatment, and then driven gently to the nearest 
hospital, were here given emergency dressings and 
told, ''The Advanced Dressing Station is two miles 
down that road, boys. Walk slow and don't miss 
the sign telling where to turn to the left." Other 
more serious oases for whom there was no room in 
ambulances, at the moment were carried on 
stretchers by prisoners. I would assemble three or 
four such cases, take a revolver left by some 
wounded officer or non-com, and give it to a "walking- 
wounded" with instructions to "see that they get 
safely to the next point." Naturally, these boys 
with minor wounds of their own were safe guard- 
ians to see that the German prisoners did their 
duty. I can still see their grins as they assured 
me : ' ' Those fellows are sure going to stick on the 
job, sir. I'll say they will!" The attitude of the 
slightly wounded men was often full of grim humor. 
I remember one Australian carried in on a stretcher 
who called me to his side with their customary 
"Here, Yank," and when I responded handed me 
very gravely a Mills bomb which he had used to 
overawe his captive bearers, apparently threaten- 
ing to blow them up with himself should they prove 
insubordinate. 

A constant worry of mine were the weapons which 
the wounded men dropped in front or within the 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 45 

aid post. Knowing that all army supplies would 
be reissued to them on release from the hospital, the 
soldiers did not care to carry heavy rifles or even re- 
volvers and bombs back with them. The result was 
a pile of weapons at just the point where my 
prisoner stretcher-bearers could have easy access 
to them. I kept ^an M. P. busy much of the time 
removing these to a place of comparative safety. 

Behind the aid post we found a shed which served 
as temporary morgue for the men who died before 
we could give them emergency treatment and rush 
them off in the ambulances. The extreme tension 
of the actual fight and the tremendous pressure of 
administering to the living calloused the heart 
for the moment to these horrible necessities, which 
come back to memory in later days with the full 
measure of ghastly detail. 

The chaplain is the handy man at the front, one 
of the few who is not limited by special duties or 
confined to a particular spol. He works forward or 
backward as the need exists. He ladles out hot 
chocolate with the Red Cross, carries a stretcher 
with the Medical Corps, ties up a bandage when that 
is needed, and prays for Jew and Christian alike. 
I ministered to a number of Jewish and Christian 
soldiers who were dying, leading the Jews in the 
traditional confession of faith, and reading a psalm 
for the Protestants. One of the surgeons came to 
me and said, ^'Captain Connor here is dying, and 
Chaplain Hoffman our priest is at Battalion Head- 
quarters acting as interpreter to examine some 
prisoners. What can we doT^ So I borrowed the 
surgeon's rosary and held the cross to the lips of 
the dying Catholic. This incident, so impossible 



46 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FRANCE 

in civil life, is really expected among soldiers, — it 
has been repeated so many times and in so many 
different ways. 

We were constantly under heavy shell fire, as our 
place at the cross roads was not only convenient 
of access, but was also the only route for bringing 
supplies and ammunition to our part of the front. 
Once as I was in the middle of the road with several 
prisoners loading stretchers on an ambulance, a shell 
burst in a pool about twenty feet away, covering us 
with a shower of mud. My prisoners, who had a 
wholesome respect for their own artillery, could 
hardly be prevented from dropping the stretcher. 
However, we were too near the explosion to be hurt, 
as the fragments flew over our heads, killing one boy 
and wounding four others across the street. One 
of the wounded was an American runner from the 
front, who was enjoying a hasty bite at the army 
field kitchen around the corner. He came over in 
a hurry to have his cheek tied up and then went 
calmly back to the field kitchen to finish his inter- 
rupted lunch. The man who was killed was stand- 
ing about seventy-five feet from the spot of the 
explosion beside the motor-cycle which he drove, 
waiting for his commanding officer to come and use 
the side-car. He pitched forward as though falling 
to avoid the explosion, just as we would have done 
if we had not been holding a stretcher. "When he 
did not rise, Father Kelley and I went over to him 
and found that a fatal bit of metal had struck him 
in the head just below his steel helmet. 

And so the work went on. The next day we heard 
of some wounded who had not yet been brought in 
from Bandival Farm. Chaplain Burgh of the 107th 



WITH THE TWEN^TY-SEVENTH DIVISION" 47 

Infantry and I gathered together a few volunteers of 
our ambulance men and several prisoners to go out 
and carry them in. It was about a mile and a half 
out across the battlefield under intermittent shell 
fire. I placed my captured Luger revolver, which 
one of the boys land brought me the day before, in a 
conspicuous position with the handle projecting 
from my front pocket. I had had the thing un- 
loaded as soon as I got it because I preferred not 
to run any unnecessary risks. Being a non-com- 
batant both by orders and inclination, I was afraid it 
might go off. But my prisoners did not know that 
and so I had no difficulty in silencing their muttered 
protests .against such a hard and dangerous hike. 
Working prisoners under fire like this was strictly 
agamst intem^ational law, but that sort of a provision 
we violated frankly and cheerfully. On the way 
back with our wounded across the muddy and shell- 
pitted fields, we passed German machine gun em- 
placements with the dead gunners still beside the 
guns, Americans lying with their faces toward the 
enemy, and constant heaps of supplies of all kinds 
strewn about. One of our stretchers was put down 
tor a moment's rest near such a scattered group of 
(rerman knapsacks. One of the prisoners asked if 
he might help himself, and when I nodded all four 
made a wild dash for the supplies and each man 
came back carrying an army overcoat and a bag of 
emergency rations, the Httle sweetish crackers 
■which they carried instead of our hard tack 

On the third day of the attack I joined two men 
of the InteUigence Department in walking out to 
the front line, then over five miles from the village 
It was a hard hike through the mud and about the 



48 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

shell holes. Finally we found our friends dug in 
(for the fourth time that day) on a little ridge. 
Each time their temporary trenches had been com- 
pleted orders had come either for a short retreat 
or a further advance, and now by the middle of the 
afternoon the boys were digging another at the 
place where they were to stay till the next morn- 
ing. Across the ravine in a little wood the Germans 
were hanging on for the time being until their ar- 
tillery could be saved. I visited the 108th Infantry 
in reserve and emptied my musette bag of the sacks 
of Bull Durham which I had brought along from 
the Red Cross. Then the boys wanted matches, 
which I had forgotten, and their gratitude was lost 
in their disgust. 

I found Captain Merrill with his staff inspecting 
two captured German 77 's, on which they had just 
placed the name of their unit. By that time, after 
three consecutive battles without replacements, our 
units were so depleted that a regiment had only 250 
rifles in the line instead of the original 3,000. Cap- 
tain Merrill's battalion consisted on that day of 
87 riflemen. Just as we finished our inspection of 
the guns the enemy artillery started ''strafing" 
again, so we jumped into a shell-hole which had 
been hollowed out into convenient form and finished 
our conversation there. I then visited some of the 
107th Infantry in the front line rifle pits, one hun- 
dred yards or so ahead, and turned back again 
toward the village. 

I was just losing my way among the hills with 
approaching twilight, when I met an Australian ar- 
tillery train on their way back for supplies, and 
climbed on a limber to ride into town. It was a wild 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 49 

ride, with the rough roads and the drivers ' habit of 
trotting over the spots where shell-holes showed 
that danger might linger. I held on in quite un- 
military fashion and wondered if the horse behind 
would be careful when I fell. But they brought me 
in safely and added one more means of locomotion 
to the dozens which I had utilized at various times : 
ammunition "lorries," ambulances, side-cars and 
even a railway locomotive — everything in fact ex- 
cept a tank. 

The next day we breathed more freely again. 
Our tired boys, reduced in numbers, weakened in 
physical resistance, but going forward day after day 
as their orders came, were at last to go out of the 
lines. Their job was done; they had reached the 
Sambre Canal ; and though we did not know it, they 
were not to go into battle again. I lorried back to 
Joncourt, the temporary division headquarters, for 
the night, changed my clothes, slept in a borrowed 
cot, read a very heartening pile of home letters 
which had accumulated for some weeks, and returned 
to St. Souplet the next day for the burial detail. 
It was the 21st of October; while the division as a 
whole marched back to the railhead, five chaplains 
with a detail of a hundred and fifty men stayed be- 
hind for the sad work that remained to be done. 

At this time I stopped otf at the 108th Infantry 
for a few minutes, as they halted for a meal after 
coming out of the lines, and had my orderly, David 
Lefkowitz, detached from his unit to serve with 
me for my entire remaining period with the division. 
I had become acquainted with him during my first 
few days in the division and found that he would 
be interested to work with me as orderly and assis- 



50 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN- IN" FEANCE 

tant. The order assigning him to this special work 
was made out before we left the woods at Buire. 
But our various units were so depleted at the time 
that I arranged to leave him with his ''outfit" for 
the battle. It was a serious deprivation to me, as 
Lefkowitz had been through the earlier battle at the 
Hindenburg Line and could have given me much as- 
sistance and advice in the front line work. Now 
that the fighting was over, he left his company to go 
with me and enjoy the comparative luxury of di- 
vision headquarters until he rejoined his company 
to sail home from France. He was one of the many 
Jewish soldiers who welcomed the presence of a 
chaplain and gladly cooperated in every possible 
way to make my work successful. 

Chaplain Francis A. Kelley, in charge of our 
burial work, laid out the cemetery on a hill over- 
looking the village and the battlefield. The rest 
of us searched the field with details of men, brought 
in the bodies on limbers, searched and identified 
them as well as possible. In doubtful cases the 
final identification was made at the cemetery, where 
men from every regiment were working and where 
most soldiers would have some one to recognize them. 
In addition, we buried German dead on the field, 
marking the graves and keeping a record of their 
location for the Graves Eegistration Service. A 
hundred and fifty-two men were buried there at St. 
Souplet, the last cemetery of the Twenty-Seventh 
Division in their battle grounds of France. The 
last body of all, found after the work had been fin- 
ished and the men released from dut}^, was buried 
by us chaplains and the surgeon, who went out under 
the leadership of Father Kelley and dug the grave 



WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 51 

ourselves. Every evening the six of us gathered 
about our grate fire and relaxed from the grim busi- 
ness of the day. If we had allowed ourselves to 
dwell on it, we would have been incapable of carry- 
ing on the work : it was so ghastly, so full of pathetic 
and horrible details. We sang, played checkers, 
argued on religion. Imagine us singing the '' Dark- 
town Strutters ' Ball, ' ' or discussing the fundamental 
principles of Judaism and Christianity for several 
hours ! The five of us were all of different creeds, 
too — ^Catholic, Baptist, Christian, Christian Scien- 
tist and Jew. Our cooperation and our congenial- 
ity were typical of the spirit of the service through- 
out. 

On the last day we held our burial service. We 
gathered together at the cemetery with a large flag 
spread out in the middle of the plot. I read a brief 
Jewish service, followed by Chaplains Bagby and 
Stewart in the Protestant and Father Kelley in the 
Catholic burial service, and at the end the bugle 
sounded "taps" for all those men of different faiths 
lying there together. We could see and hear the 
shells bursting beyond the hill, probably a hostile 
scout had caught sight of us at work. Above floated 
a British aeroplane. Some English soldiers work- 
ing on their burial plot nearby stopped their digging 
and listened to our service. 

And so we said farewell to our lost comrades and 
to the war at the same time. 



CHAPTER IV 

ATTEE THE AEMISTICEl 

AFTEE the burial work at St. Souplet was over, 
great covered lorries took us back the sixty 
miles or more to Corbie, in the vicinity of 
Amiens, which was to be our rest area. We greeted 
its paved streets, its fairly intact houses, its few 
tiny shops, as the height of luxury. Here and there 
a roof was destroyed or a wall down, for the enemy 
had come within three miles of Corbie in their 
drives earlier in the year. But we were in rest and 
comparative plenty at last. We saw real civilians 
again, not merely the few old people and little 
children left behind in the towns we had liberated. 
We had regular meals again and a chance to pur- 
chase a few luxuries beside, such as French bread 
at a shop and hard candy at the " Y. " We no longer 
heard the whine of the shell or whistle of the bullet, 
nor smelled gas, nor slept in cellars. I was even 
lucky enough to capture a thick spring mattress 
which, with my blankets, made a bed that even a 
certain staff colonel envied me. A home-made grate 
in the fire-place fitted it for a tiny coal fire; the 
window frames were re-covered with oiled paper; 
we read the London Daily Mail in its Paris edi- 
tion only one day late, instead of seeing it every ten 
days and then often two weeks out of date. 

My billet, which I obtained from the British town 

52 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 53 

major, was a tall, narrow house just off the principal 
square, very pleasant indeed in dry weather. Its 
chief defect was a huge shell-hole in the roof through 
which the water poured in torrents when it rained, 
so that we had to cover ourselves with our rubber 
shelter-halves when we slept at night. The shell- 
hole, however, was a constant source of fuel, and we 
burned the laths and wood-work, of which small 
pieces were lying all about the top floor, until we 
found means to obtain a small but steady supply 
of coal. The house afforded room, after I had 
preempted it, for the Senior Chaplain of the Di- 
vision, the Division Burial Officer and myself, to- 
gether with our three orderlies. 

Even in dry weather there was some excitement 
about the old house. There was the time when 
some tipsy soldiers, seeing the light in the Senior 
Chaplain's room late at night, mistook the place 
for a cafe and came stumbling in for a drink. 
When they saw the chaplain, they suddenly sobered 
and accepted very gravely the drink of water he 
offered them from his canteen. On another day the 
old woman who owned the house came in with her 
son, a French lieutenant, to take away her furniture. 
We did not mind losing the pretty inlaid table — 
we were soldiers and could stand that — ^but our mat- 
tresses and chairs were a different matter. None 
of us could argue with her torrential flow of French, 
but Lieutenant Curtiss, the Burial Officer, suddenly 
felt his real attack of flu redoubled in violence and 
had to take to his mattress. So the old lady finally 
relented sufficiently to leave us our beds and a 
chair or two, while her son became our devoted 
friend at the price of an American cigar. 



54 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

I think that I shall never forget Corbie, with its 
narrow streets, its half -ruined houses, its great an- 
cient church of gray, with one transept a heap of 
ruins, and the straight rows of poplars on both 
sides of the Somme Canal, — a bit of Corot in the 
mist of twilight. I remember the quiet, gray square 
one day with the American band playing a medley 
from the "Chocolate Soldier," for all the world 
like a phonograph at home. I remember the great 
memorial review of the division by General 'Ryan 
in honor of our men who had fallen ; the staff stood 
behind the General at the top of a long, gentle 
slope, with three villages in the distance, the church 
looming up with its square, ruined tower, and the 
men spread out before us, a vanishing mass of olive 
drab against the dull shades of early winter. 

I remember the day when three of us chaplains 
made the long trip back to our division cemeteries at 
St. Emelie, Bony and Guillemont Farm to read the 
burial service over those many graves, the result 
of the terrible battle at the Hindenburg Line. Chap- 
lain Burgh, Protestant, of the 105th Infantry, Chap- 
lain Eilers, Catholic, of the 106th Infantry, and I 
were sent back the fifty miles or more by auto- 
mobile for this duty. It happened that it rained 
that day, as on most days, and the car was an open 
one. So the few soldiers still about in that deserted 
region had the rare sight of three cold and drip- 
ping chaplains standing out in the mud and rain 
to read the burial services, one holding his steel 
helmet as an umbrella over the prayerbook from 
which the other read, and then accepting the same 
service in return. There was none of the panoply 
of war, no bugle, firing party or parade, just the 



AFTER THE AEMISTICE 55 

prayer uttered for each man in the faith to which 
he was born or to which he had clung. We did not 
even know the religion of every man buried there, 
but we knew that our prayers would serve for all. 

We were lucky to be in Corbie on November 11th 
when the armistice was signed. Day after day we 
had stopped at Division Headquarters to inspect the 
maps and study the color pins which were con- 
stantly moving forward across France and Belgium. 
It was a study that made us all drunk with enthusi- 
asm. We were under orders to move toward the 
front again on the 9th of November and to enter 
the lines once more on November 14th. The men 
had had very little rest and no fresh troops had 
come up to fill the losses made by wounds, exposure 
and disease. Our men could never hold a full di- 
visional area now; only the knowledge of the 
wonders they had already accomplished made us 
consider it possible that they could fight again so 
soon. Time after time when their strength and 
spirit seemed both exhausted they had responded 
and gone ahead. Now they deserved their rest. 

We greeted the good news very calmly; the Ger- 
man prisoners were a little more elated ; the French 
went mad with ecstasy. It was the only time I 
have ever seen Frenchmen drunk, heard them go 
home after midnight singing patriotic songs out of 
key. In Amiens, where several thousand of the 
inhabitants had returned by that time, the few 
restaurants were crowded and gaiety was unre- 
strained. I heard a middle-aged British lieutenant 
sing the ''Marseillaise" with a pretty waitress in 
the ''Cafe de la Cathedral" the following evening, 
and respond when asked to repeat it in the main 



56 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FRANCE 

dining room. He returned to our side room de- 
cidedly -redder than he had gone out. ''Why, the 
whole British general staff's in there!" he gasped. 
But he received only applause without a reprimand. 
The war was over and for the moment all France 
was overcome with joy and all the allied armies 
with relief and satisfaction. 

After the armistice the front line work, with its 
absorption on the problems of the wounded and the 
dead, became a thing of the past. The chaplain 
could now turn to the more normal aspects of his 
work, to religious ministration, personal service, 
advice and assistance in the thousands of cases 
which came before him constantly. In fact, on the 
whole his work became much the same as it had been 
in training camp in the States. A few differences 
persisted; in France the chaplain was without the 
magnificent backing of the Jewish communities at 
home, which were always so eager to assist in en- 
tertaining and helping the Jewish men in the near- 
by camps. The Jewish "Welfare Board with its ex- 
cellent workers could never cover the entire field 
as well as it could at home in America. Then there 
were special problems because the men were so far 
away from home, because the mail service was 
poor, because worries about allotments were more 
acute than if home had been nearer, and because the 
alien civilization and language never made the men 
feel quite comfortable. 

In the Corbie area the 27th Division was scattered 
about in twelve villages, the farthest one eight miles 
from division headquarters. Transportation was 
still common on the roads, though often I had to 
walk and once I made the trip to Amiens in the 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 57 

cab of a locomotive when neither train nor truck 
was running, and found a ride back in an empty 
ambulance which had brought patients to the evacu- 
ation hospital. The villages were almost deserted, 
and were in rather bad condition after their nearness 
to the German advance of 1918, so that the men 
could be crowded together and were very easy to 
reach in a body. I began making regular visits to 
the various units of the division, meeting the men, 
holding services, receiving their requests and carry- 
ing them out as well as possible. And I was con- 
stantly making new acquaintances, as the wounded 
and sick began coming back from the hospitals to 
rejoin the division. 

I had the opportunity of an occasional visit to 
Amiens, a city built for a hundred thousand, but at 
the time inhabited by only a few thousand of the 
more venturesome inhabitants, who had returned 
to open shops and restaurants for the British, Aus- 
tralian and American troops. On account of lack 
of competition, prices were extreme even for Prance 
in war-time. The great cathedral was piled high 
with sandbags to protect its precious sculptures, 
but it stood as always, the sentinel of the city, visi- 
ble ten miles away as one approached. The Church 
Army Hut of the British forces atforded separate 
accomodations for enlisted men and officers, and I 
had the pleasure of afternoon tea once or twice 
with some of the latter. Amiens was an unsatis- 
factory place to shop, but my baggage had not been 
found and winter was coming on fast, so I had to 
replace some of my possessions at once at any prices 
that might be demanded. 

Our mess held its formal celebration on November 



58 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FKANCE 

17th, with Lieutenant Eobert Bernstein, the French 
liaison officer, as the guest of honor because of his 
exact prediction of the date of the armistice when 
he had returned from a visit to Paris several weeks 
previously. Our mess, officers' mess number two 
of division headquarters, had an international char- 
acter through his presence and that of Captain Jen- 
kins of the British army, and a special tone of com- 
radeship through the influence of the president of 
the mess, Major Joseph Farrell, the division dis- 
bursing officer. So for once we had the ra^re treat 
of turkey and wine, feeling that the occasion de- 
manded it. 

I felt httle pleasure in the jollity of the evening, 
however. I had just received a letter that day 
telling me of the death of one of my twin babies 
of the flu; it had happened almost a month before, 
while I was on the lines and quite out of reach of 
any kind of word. The war, through its attendant 
epidemics, gathered its victims also from among 
the innocent, far from the scene of struggle. I 
felt then that my grief was but a part of the univer- 
sal sacrifice. With all these other parents, whose 
older sons died at the front in actual fighting, or 
whose younger ones were caught denuded of medical 
protection at home, I hoped that all this sacrificial 
blood might bring an end to war. To-day that faith 
is harder and that consolation seems a mockery, 
for we seem to be preparing for another struggle 
even while children are dying of hunger in central 
Europe and massacres of helpless Jews are still 
not yet ended in the east. When I received the 
news I took a long walk amid the most peaceful 
scene I ever knew, up the tree-lined banks of the 



AFTER THE AEMISTICE 59 

Somme Canal, with the evening slowly coming on 
and the sun setting behind the stiff rows of poplars. 

At last we were detached from the British Third 
Army and received orders to entrain for the Ameri- 
can Embarkation Center (as it was later called) 
near Le Mans. Our headquarters there were in the 
village of Montfort, where we arrived on Thanks- 
giving Day and stayed for three weary months. 
Montfort le Routrou is a village of nine hundred 
people, with one long street which runs up the hill 
and down the other side. The hill is crowned with 
a typical village church and a really fine chateau, 
where the General made his headquarters. The 
tiny gray houses seemed all to date from the time 
of Henry of Navarre; my billet was a low cottage 
with stone walls over three feet thick, as though 
meant to stand a siege or to uphold a skyscraper. 
The floor was of stone, the grate large and fuel 
scarce, no artificial light available except candles. 
The bed alone was real luxury, a typical French 
bed, high, narrow and very soft — an indescribable 
treat to a man who had slept on everything from 
an army cot to a cellar floor. 

The surrounding country was rolling, with charm- 
ing little hills and constant knots of woods. The 
division, as we had known it on the British front, 
was housed in forty villages, widely scattered about 
the countryside, and our artillery, which had fought 
in the American sector, was contained by ten more, 
located near Laval about fifty miles away. The 
men lived chiefly in barns, as the houses were oc- 
cupied by peasants, who needed their own rooms. 
As far as the enlisted men were concerned, living 
accomodations were better in partially ruined terri- 



60 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

tory, where they could at least occupy the houses, 
such as they were. Because we were in a populous 
region, only smaller units could be billeted in a single 
village, which meant less access to places of amuse- 
ment. The typical French village has no single 
room large enough for even a picture show, ex- 
cept the one place of assembly, the church; ap- 
parently the farmers and villagers have no amuse- 
ments except drinking, dancing (in tiny, crowded 
rooms) and church attendance. 

Such cheerless lives hardly suited the Americans. 
Often the men had to walk a mile or more to the 
nearest Y. M. C. A. canteen, and those were im- 
provised on our arrival by our own divisional Y. M. 
O. A. staff, which we had been permitted to bring 
with us on the earnest request of the chaplains of 
the division. After our long sojourn in the area, 
we left a completely equipped series of canteens 
and amusement buildings for the following divisions. 
The nearest available place for light and warmth, 
out of the mud and chill, was usually the French 
cafe, and that was available only when the men had 
money. 

The greatest handicap on any effort for the morale 
of the men at the outset was the uncertainty of our 
situation. We were semi- officially informed that our 
stay in the area would be for only, a few weeks, and 
that no formal program of athletics, education or 
entertainment could be arranged. Wlien life grows 
dreary and monotonous, as in the Embarkation 
Center, the chief diet of the soldier is such rumors 
of going home. In our case three orders were pro- 
mulgated for our troop movement, only to be re- 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 61 

scinded again while the wounded, sick and special 
small detachments Went ahead. 

Another difficult problem was the one of covering 
ground. At the front it had been easy because the 
division was concentrated for action and because of 
the constant stream of trucks with their readiness of 
access. Even in the Corbie area the division had 
been so crowded together that seven services would 
reach every man who wanted to attend one or to meet 
me. At the rear the division would be billeted in 
villages, scattered about over twenty miles of coun- 
tryside ; it was impossible to get from place to place 
without transportation, and that was very scarce. 
The army gave the chaplains more encouragement 
and friendship than actual facilities for work; the 
chaplains' corps was just making its position strong 
at the end of the war. Fortunately, the Jewish 
"Welfare Board came to the rescue here. It pro- 
cured Ford cars for the Jewish chaplains about the 
first of the year 1919, thus doubling their scope for 
work and making them the envy of all the chaplains 
in France. 

My work became a matter of infinite details, with 
little opportunity for organization but plenty for 
day labor. I arranged as many services as possible, 
getting to the various units by train, side-car, or 
walking until I obtained my own machine for the 
purpose. These services, from one to ten a week, 
were arranged through the battalion chaplains as 
a rule, though sometimes I established connections 
with some of the Jewish boys or with the command- 
ing officer, especially in cases of detached companies 
without any chaplain at hand. Every service had 



62 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

its share of requests for information, advice, as- 
sistance, even for errands, as the men had difficulty 
in getting to the city to have a watch repaired or in 
reaching divisional headquarters for information. 
Some men would want to know about brothers or 
friends who had been wounded. Many had diffi- 
culty with their allotments, in which case I worked 
through the army. Red Cross, and Jewish Welfare 
Board. Others wanted information about relatives 
in Poland or Roumania, or to be mustered out of 
service that they might join and assist their parents 
in eastern Europe; unfortunately, neither informa- 
tion nor help was possible during the time we were in 
France. Some men wished to remain for the Army 
of Occupation or other special service; far more 
were afraid they might be ordered to such service 
and wanted advice how to avoid it and return home 
as soon as possible. Citizenship papers, back pay, 
furloughs, — ^the requests were legion, and the chap- 
lain had no difficulty in being useful. 

Naturally, one of my tasks was to gather accurate 
statistics of the 65 Jewish boys in our division who 
had been killed, to find exactly where they were 
buried, have their graves all marked with the Magen 
David, the six-pointed star, and keep the list for 
the benefit of their families when I should return. 
I even made one trip to Tours to discuss the possi- 
bility of making such a list for the other divisions 
which came into the area, though the task was too 
complicated to carry out completely in any but my 
own. Often men were lost to view entirely when 
they went to hospital; sometimes it transpired 
months later that a certain man had died or been as- 
signed to another unit or sent back to the States. 



AFTEE THE AEMISTICE 63 

But little by little the facts all came to light. Even 
here humorous incidents would occur, such as the 
time when I read a list of dead from their unit at one 
battalion service, only to have one of the men on 
the list speak up : * ' Why, I 'm not dead. Chaplain ! ' ' 
It transpired that this man had been wounded on 
the head in an advance and had been reported as 
dead by two comrades who had seen him fall. So 
I had him in my records as "killed in action — grave 
unknown," when he was actually in the hospital, re- 
covering slowly but completely. If he had been re- 
turned from the hospital to another division, as was 
often the case, I might never have known his fate. 

In spite of such conditions I found the exact 
graves of all but three of the men on my list, and in 
the entire division, with its almost 2,000 dead, only 
fifteen graves were unknown at the time we returned. 
This was largely due to the untiring efforts of Lieu- 
tenant Summerfield S. Curtiss, the Division Burial 
Officer, who was my room-mate in Corbie and with 
whose methods I became familiar at that time. 
With the cooperation of the various chaplains and 
line officers, he was able to inspect and certify to the 
valuables left by men killed in action, to record 
every grave, and in the few instances where both 
identification tags and personal acquaintances were 
lacking, to take the finger-prints of the men before 
burial and thus preserve the only remaining traces 
of identity. 

At this time I had the opportunity of seeing our 
division reviewed by General Pershing. The review 
was held at the Belgian Camp near Le Mans in 
massed formation. The men marched by in heavy 
masses; the General bestowed decorations on over 



64 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" PEANCE 

a hundred heroes, including six Jewish boys ; at the 
end he gave the officers an informal talk, telling us of 
the special need that existed for keeping up morale 
during the tedious period of waiting to go home. 

That very subject had been discussed only a few 
days before by the chaplains of the division, meeting 
with General O'Eyan for the purpose. Chaplains' 
meetings were frequent, under the call of the Senior 
Chaplain, Almon A. Jaynes, where we took up not 
only details, such as arrangement of services in the 
various units, but also the broader moral and edu- 
cational problems. The General's interest in our 
work and our aims was evident in every word 
spoken at the meeting, especially his searching que- 
ries as to drunkenness, dissatisfaction, and remedies 
for such evils as we brought out. 

The three months of waiting had been in many 
ways harder than the previous months of battle. 
Interest in our military purpose was gone ; the men 
had few amusements and much work to fill in their 
time. We had very little athletic or educational 
effort ; that was prevented by our constant expecta- 
tion of an early departure. Mail service was often 
bad, especially for the men who had been transferred 
repeatedly. Pay was unreliable when a man had 
been transferred or sent to hospital and his records 
lost or mixed up. And the French winter is a rainy 
season, with occasional days of clear cold. No 
wonder that the soldiers were disgusted with France, 
war, army and everything else. In the midst of 
this growing irritation, their pet phrase became, 
** Little old U. S. A. is good enough for me." 

The average soldier did not meet the better class 
of French people, only the peasants and the pros- 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 65 

titutes of the towns. He had little taste for the 
wonderful architectural and historical treasures of 
the country; he could not speak the language be- 
yond his elementary needs; and — one of his great 
objections — the French undeniably have poor plumb- 
ing and bathing facilities. 

On the other hand, the French country people did 
not like our soldiers over much. The soldier of any 
nation was rather noisy, rather rough, and had no 
idea whatever of property values. He took any- 
thing he needed, simply *' finding" it, the worst 
possible trait to thrifty French country people. 
Then, talking only a few words of French, the 
American natutrally left out phrases like '^ mon- 
sieur" or *'s'il vous plait," and he was considered 
to be ignorant of ordinary politeness, a wild Indian, 
the brother of the savage still supposed to be throng- 
ing our plains. A small minority of our men did 
penetrate into French life and grew to love it; a 
minority of the French made the acquaintance of 
Americans and came to respect them. Unfortu- 
nately, the two peoples were introduced to each 
other under most unfavorable circumstances. 

These conditions, together with the constant flood 
of rumors, had the worst possible influence on the 
spirit of the men, which went down steadily from 
its magnificent power at the front, until the news 
of our actual orders to move toward Brest brought 
it suddenly up again. As the first division in the 
American Embarkation Center on the way home, 
we had to suffer for the later units, all of which 
had a program of athletics, entertainments and 
schools ready for them when they arrived. "Work- 
ing to build up the spirit of the men under the most 



66 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

discouraging circumstances, we received a power- 
ful object lesson of the influences most destructive 
to morale. 

The value of my work was at least doubled by 
the Ford touring car lent me by the Jewish Welfare 
Board. I received it on New Year's Day, 1919, in 
Paris and drove back to Le Mans, almost trans- 
figured by the fact. My driver, assigned for the 
trip only, was splendid; I could stop for a brief 
view of the chateau and park at Versailles and the 
cathedral of Chartres; I knew that from that time 
on I could go from unit to unit so long as the machine 
stuck together and the army store of gasoline held 
out. With this car I was able to visit the artillery 
in the Laval area, about fifty miles from our head- 
quarters, and conduct one service in each of their 
regiments. The artillery had not been on the Brit- 
ish front at all, but on the American, so they had 
quite different adventures from ours. They had 
supported several other American infantry units 
in the St. Mihiel sector and north of Verdun, and had 
received mercifully few casualties compared with 
our infantrymen and engineers. The trip to them 
by car was unusually delightful, over smooth roads 
which the great army trucks had not yet ruined, 
through country where American soldiers were a 
rarity and the children would crowd the doorways 
to cheer us as we went by; over the gentle wooded 
hills of western France, with the trees hung with 
mistletoe ; through the tiny gray villages, with their 
quaint Eomanesque churches, many of them older 
than the great Grothic cathedrals of the north. 

While in Paris on New Year, I enjoyed the rare 
treat of a family dinner at the home of my friend 



AFTEK THE ARMISTICE 67 

Georges Levy, an interpreter "with our division. 
Through him and Lieutenant Bernstein I reached 
some sort of an impression of the state of French 
Jewry to-day. To tell the truth, neither I nor the 
average Jewish soldier received a very flattering 
impression. The shadow of the Dreyfus case 
V seemed still to hang over the Jews of France. 
They feared to speak a word of Yiddish, which was 
often their only mode of communication with the 
American Jewish soldiers. One shopkeeper, asked 
whether he was a Jew, took the visitor far in the 
rear out of hearing of any possible customers before 
replying in the affirmative. 

For one thing, except in Paris and the cities of 
eastern France, Jews exist only in very small groups. 
I have mentioned the four families of Nevers and 
the little synagogue of Tours, with its seventy-five 
seats. Le Mans possesses an old street named ' ' Rue 
de la Juiverie," so that at one time there must have 
been enough Jews to need a Ghetto, but in 1919 Le 
Mans had only four resident Jewish families and 
one or two more of refugees from the occupied 
territory. 

Another menace to the loyalty of Jews is the 
general difficulty ofall religious Hberalism in France. 
Eeligion to most people in France means orthodoxy, 
Jewish and Catholic ;Nthis naturally suits only those 
of conservative background or temperament. Al- 
most the only other movement is irreligious in litera- 
ture, art, government and philosophy. Those large 
groups of liberals who in America would be ad- 
herents of liberal movements, Jewish or Christian, 
in France are usually entirely alienated from re- 
ligion. The liberals are intelligent but weak in num- 



68 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

bers. As a converse of this, the synagogue is largely 
content with past glories, making little effort to ad- 
just itself either in thought or organization to the 
conditions of the time. The American Jews were 
always interested to hear about the Jews of France, 
of the greatness of Eashi in former days, and eager 
to inquire about the present status. They never 
could quite understand the condition of a country 
where the government had been divided for years 
by a pro and anti-Jewish issue, as was the situation 
at the time of the Dreyfus case. American de- 
mocracy, even in the young and unskilled mind 
of the average soldier, had no concept for anti- 
Semitism. 

When we knew finally that the division was on its 
way home, I preferred a request through General 

'Ryan that I should go home with it. But G. H. Q. 
Chaplains' Office could not grant my wish; there 
were too few chaplains of all religions overseas ; and 
we Jews in particular needed every worker there. 

1 was detached and assigned to the Le Mans area, 
under the senior chaplain of the American Embarka- 
tion Center. Naturally, I regretted deeply seeing 
my old comrades go without me. I reported at Le 
Mans, obtained fourteen days leave to the Eiviera, 
which had been due me for over two months, and 
said good-by. The Twenty- Seventh was the first 
division to reach the Embarkation Center, the first 
to leave for home as a unit, and it finally paraded, 
without its Jewish chaplain, up Fifth Avenue to a 
tremendous ovation. I studied the pictures several 
weeks later in the New York papers, and actually 
thought I saw the vacant place in the column where 
I should have been. 



CHAPTER V 

AT THE AMERICAN EMBARKATION CENTER 

WHEN I knew for certain that I was to re- 
main in France I asked for my two weeks ' 
leave and departed for the Riviera via 
Paris. It was my fourth visit to the metropolis, 
a city which grows only more wonderful at every 
view. Its boulevards and parks, public buildings 
and shops were always attractive; in addition, the 
art treasures were now beginning to come back to 
their places, and the crowds were taking on the 
gaiety of peace time in the brilliantly lighted streets, 
so different from the sober groups and dismal streets 
during the war. This trip carried me beyond to a 
land of myriad attractions and surpassing loveli- 
ness. The mediaeval monuments of Avignon, the 
Roman antiquities of Aries and Nimes, the splendid 
modern city of Marseilles, Toulon with its quaint 
streets and charming harbor, Hyeres of the palm 
trees, and on to Cannes, to Nice, that greater At- 
lantic City, Grasse with its flowers and perfumes, 
and Monte Carlo, garden spot of the whole — all 
blended in a mosaic whose brilliant colors can never 
fade. Overhanging mountains and sub-tropical sea 
together unite all the types of attraction of all beau- 
tiful lands the world over. The palms and flowers 
never seemed quite real to me, while one was quite 
bewildered by the works of man — ancient monu- 

69 



70 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

ments, mediaeval art, and the most modern trappings 
of contemporary play and luxury. 

At Cannes I met Captain Limburger, in charge 
of the Motor Transportation Corps there, who 
helped me to reach the officers' convalescent hos- 
pital at Hyeres to search for a friend. The trip of 
eighty-five miles by sidecar was the bright partic- 
ular spot in the whole gorgeous festival of the 
Coast of Azure, up the heights of the Maritime Alps 
into the clouds and down again to the edge of the 
blue inland sea, past ruined castles of the Roman 
time and through the quaint southern villages of 
nowadays; ending finally at the hospital, which 
turned out to be the San Salvador, one of the most 
splendid winter hotels on the Mediterranean. I 
even heard Francis Macmillan, a captain in the in- 
telligence corps, give a violin concert for the officers 
during my one evening there. 

Nice and the surrounding territory were crowded 
by Americans, as it was the most popular- leave 
area for the American army. The great casino on 
the pier was the Y. M. C. A. for enlisted men, while 
the officers had their club on the square. In fact, 
all the arrangements by the <'Y" in the various 
leave areas were magnificent. This, probably its 
most successful single piece of work, has hardly 
received the attention it deserves. I found the same 
to be true of every leave area I visited, including 
d-renoble, where I stopped for a day among the 
Alps on my return trip. Altogether the brief four- 
teen days were one of those unforgettable experi- 
ences which linger in the memory. One of the fine 
achievements of the army was that it was able to 
give an experience such as this to many thousands 



AT THE AMEKICAN EMBAKKATION CENTER 71 

of officers and enlisted men, for their own elevation 
and their greater knowledge of France. 

I should like to emphasize, if I could, the impor- 
tance of the leave areas for the morale of the troops 
and their better appreciation of France. During 
actual hostilities men were willing to give up their 
leave, especially Americans who could not visit their 
homes but wanted only a change. After the war, 
however, military discipline became constantly more 
irksome to the soldiers, and the week or two with- 
out orders, in a real hotel with sheets and table- 
cloths, sight-seeing or merely resting, was the one 
thing necessary to bring them back to their units 
content to work and wait till their turn came to go 
back home. It was also a rare opportunity to see 
the best side of France and the French, when they 
had seen only the worst. No soldier admired the 
France of the war zone, with its ruined villages, its 
waste stretches, and its shell holes. Neither did 
he care for the France of the rest areas, where 
he knew only the smallest villages, with the least 
attractive people to a young progressive from the 
western world. Now he was able to enjoy the 
beauty and luxury of that older and more sophisti- 
cated civilization which always considered him either 
an amiable savage or a spoiled child. 

The trip back to Paris and Le Mans was an ex- 
perience in itself. I met three young and congenial 
medical officers on the train, with whom I traveled 
the rest of the way, stopping off for a half day at 
the little known town of Digne in the Basse Alps, 
where we saw the ancient church with its crypt, the 
art gallery with its painters of local prominence, 
and the old Eoman sulphur baths, still used to-day. 



72 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

Another day at Grenoble brought us into the heart 
of the French Alps. We reveled in the city with 
the snow-caps about. I felt the usual thrill at the 
tomb of the Chevalier Bayard, and more than ordin- 
ary pleasure in the beauty of the city itself. 

I now settled down at Le Mans for the work of the 
Embarkation Center. Le Mans is too well known to 
Americans who have recently been in Prance to re- 
quire much description. It is a city of about 75,000 
people, with the customary narrow streets in the 
heart of the town, the fine parks and boulevards of 
every French city, and the very interesting cathe- 
dral overlooking the whole. There are fragments of 
the old Roman walls of the third century, and as 
an ironic contrast a fine street running through a 
tunnel which is named after Wilbur Wright, whose 
decisive experiments in aerial navigation were 
carried on nearby. My billet was a pleasant home 
opposite the very lovely park, the English Gardens, 
and my landlady a tiny old gentlewoman, who used 
to bring me a French breakfast and a French news- 
paper every morning, and indulge in the most formal 
compliments, reminding me of a romance of the 
Third Empire. And for some time Le Mans was 
the center of 200,000 American troops on their way 
home! 

instead of one division to cover, I now had from 
three to six, varying as units came from their old 
locations and departed on their way to America. 
And if it had been impossible to cover one division 
thoroughly, in a great area such as this a chaplain 
could do only day labor. I traveled from one point 
to another, had a schedule of services almost every 
night of the week in a different camp, visited the 



AT THE AMERICAN" EMBARKATION CENTER 73 

transient divisions as they came in, and thus came 
into the intimate contact with the men by which 
alone I could be of use to them. The territory was 
an immense one, though much of the time I did not 
have to cover it alone. The 77th and 26th Divi- 
sions had Jewish chaplains while they were with us ; 
Chaplain James Gr. Heller was associated with me 
until he was transferred to the Second Army (in 
fact, he was in Le Mans while 1 was still with the 
27th), and after his departure Rabbi Eeuben Kauf- 
man of the J. W. B. was assigned to religious work 
under my direction. But even so the task was stag- 
gering. So many regiments and companies scat- 
tered over an area eighty miles long and sixty miles 
wide was no feasible proposition, even with the best 
of cars and a sergeant to drive it for me. 

In addition to the billeting accommodations in 
every village, the area contained several large camps 
of importance. The Classification Camp, within the 
city, was an old French barracks turned over to our 
use, which housed a constantly changing stream of 
casuals and replacements, flowing from hospitals, 
camps and schools toward their various units. The 
Spur Camp held a large group of construction units, 
engineers and bakers. The Forwarding Camp was 
a replica of a training camp at home, and contained 
a division at a time, at first in training, later in 
transit toward the ports. The Belgian Camp, 
originally built for Belgian refugees, now had long 
rows of wooden barracks for soldiers, a huge and 
always busy rifle range, and special camps of various 
types, including one for venereal patients, who 
underwent a mixture of medical treatment and dis- 
cipline. 



74 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

The purpose of the Embarkation Center was to 
provide a stopping place on the way to the busy 
ports of Brest and St. Nazaire, where the men might 
be deloused, have fresh clothing and equipment is- 
sued to them, undergo thorough inspections of every 
kind, and in all ways be divested of the effects of 
war and prepared to return to America. This task 
usually took a month or more, but sometimes a 
division had been partially equipped in its former 
area and if the ships happened to be ready it might 
stay in our area less than a week. On the other 
hand, it might not pass the various inspections at 
once, or at the time the transportation home might 
be lacking, and hence its departure would be de- 
layed time and again. This uncertainty of tenure 
made all work very difficult, especially work such 
as the chaplains' which depended entirely on per- 
sonal contact. 

The problem of these divisions, as of the 27th, 
was chiefly to preserve the splendid morale of the 
front while the men were in the dreary tedium of 
waiting. This was done by cutting down the drill 
to an hour a day, which made enough work in ad- 
dition to the delousing, inspecting and other nec- 
essary activities. The rest of the time was devoted 
to athletics, an educational program, and a great 
amount of entertainment, all three under the Wel- 
fare Officer appointed by the commanding general 
of the Embarkation Area, while all the welfare agen- 
cies contributed to these various ends under his 
general supervision. My work, of course, was di- 
rectly under the Senior Chaplain, according to army 
regulation. And as the various units moved toward 
their goal more rapidly and more steadily, the need 



AT THE AMERICAN" EMBAEKATION CENTER 75 

for special efforts to keep up morale grew less. 
Men keep up their own morale when they really 
know they are going home ; the difficulties had been 
largely caused by the complete uncertainty and end- 
less delays. 

Such success as I had was due very largely to the 
excellant cooperation of the Jewish Welfare 
Board. Sergeant Charles Bivitz, who had charge of 
the work in the area, was deeply interested in the 
welfare of the boys and shared the resources of the 
organization freely with me in my work. I had 
always found this same attitude; the J. W. B. fur- 
nished me a car, an allowance for welfare work, an 
office in its building, and offered its rooms for 
services in the various camps. Where it had no 
huts, I was accorded the same privilege by the 
Y. M. 0. A. Whenever its aid fell short, it was be- 
cause it had no more to give. By this time Le Mans 
had a large and active group of J. W. B. workers, 
both men and girls, with their center in the city and 
huts in many surrounding points. I found the 
workers' mess the most friendly and pleasant in 
the city, quite as congenial as the one at the Junior 
Officers' Club, which I often frequented. 

Even in the stress and turmoil of the Le Mans 
area (''the madhouse," as the boys called it) strik- 
ing or humorous personalities appeared from time 
to time. There was Abie, the wandering musician, 
a little Jew who had a gift for rag-time but no great 
intelligence, military or otherwise. Abie had gone 
to France with a replacement unit, was located 
near Le Mans and spent his spare time playing for 
the Y. M. C. A. and the officers' dances. When his 
unit moved toward the front to be incorporated in 



76 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

some fighting division, he stayed behind, not as a 
deserter, but to play the piano for the "outfits" 
that f oUo'wed. He managed even to live at the local 
hotel by the tips they gave him._ After that time he 
reported, giving his full story in detail, to every 
commanding officer who entered the village, always 
to be given enough to eat, but never accepted into 
any unit as he had no transfer from his original 
one. At last his story got abroad, he was brought 
in by the Criminal Investigation Department and 
investigated, only to prove the truth of his every 
word. So Abie, happy once more, was stationed in 
the Classification Camp and detailed to the Jewish 
Welfare Board as a pianist, improvising his rag- 
time adaptations of serious music and getting many 
privileges and a steady income for doing the work 
he enjoyed best. 

A different sort of man was the soldier in a famous 
fighting division, who sought a private interview 
with me. It seems that in the advance on the St. 
Mihiel sector he had rescued a Torah, a scroll of 
the Law, from a burning synagogue. Throwing 
away the contents of his pack, he had wrapped the 
scroll up in the pack carrier instead, and carried 
it ' ' over the top ' ' three times since. Now he wanted 
permission to take it home to give to an orphan 
asylum in which his father was active. A soldier 
was not ordinarily allowed to take anything with 
him besides the regulation equipment and such small 
souvenirs as might occupy little room, but in this 
case a kindly colonel became interested and the 
Torah went to America with the company records. 

The great event of my service in Le Mans was 
our Passover celebration on April 14th, 15th and 



AT THE AMERICAN- EMBARKATION CENTER 77 

16th, 1919. The general order for Passover fur- 
loughs read: 

"Where it will not interfere with the public service, 
members of the Jewish faith serving with the American 
Expeditionary Forces will be excused from all duty from 
noon, April 14th, to midnight, April 16th, 1919, and, 
where deemed practicable, granted passes to enable them 
to observe the Passover in their customary manner." 

Among the central points designated for Passover 
leaves was Le Mans, and the Jewish Welfare 
Board and I labored to arrange a full celebration for 
the thousand Jewish soldiers who came in from 
four different divisions. Quarters were provided 
in the Classification Camp for all the men who did 
not have the money or the previous arrangements 
for hotel rooms, as well as full accommodations for 
the Passover feast, the Seder. The Jewish Welfare 
Board obtained full supplies of Matzoth, unleavened 
bread, as well as Haggadoth, or special prayer books 
for the Seder. 

The spirit was as strong a contrast as possible 
to that of my other great service at the fall holydays. 
Among our congregation were two men from the 
isolated post of military poUce at St. Calais, fifty 
miles to the east, and five from among the students 
at the University of Eennes, a hundred miles west. 
We had a number of officers among us, while five 
French famihes, several Jews in the horizon blue 
of the French army, and two in the Eussian uni- 
form — labor battalions, since Eussia had with- 
drawn from the war — worshiped beside us. And 
when the crowd began to assemble, the first men 
I saw were a group of engineers whom I had not 



78 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

seen since Atonement Bay, seven months before. 
They were on the way home now, their presence 
emphasizing more strongly than anything else the 
change that had come to us and the world in the in- 
tervening time. Again there were the meetings of 
friends and brothers, but without the pang of part- 
ing afterward. One of the most touching features 
of the Seder was the large number of requests that 
I should inquire whether Sergeant Levi or Private 
Isaacs was present. Then how the whole gather- 
ing would be electrified when a voice cried out, 
''Here," and cousins or comrades who had not 
known even of each other's safety were able to ex- 
change festal greetings and rejoice together. 

For the two and a half days' leave the Jewish 
Welfare Board and I tried to keep the men busy, 
with something for every taste. The full program 
included a Seder, four services, a literary program, 
a vaudeville show^ a boxing exhibition, two dances 
and a movie. All were well patronized, for the 
soldier had a cultivated taste in diversion, especi- 
ally after the armistice. But certainly the most 
popular of all was the Seder. The soup with 
matzah balls, the fish, in fact the entire menu made 
them think of home. We held the dinner in an 
army mess hall, standing at the breast-high tables. 
The altar with two candles and the symbols of the 
feast was at the center of the low-roofed unwalled 
structure. Toward evening the rain, so typical of 
winter in western France, ceased ; the sun came out, 
and its last level rays shown directly upon Eabbi 
Kaufman and his little altar. It was a scene never 
to be forgotten, a feast of deepest joy mingled with 
solemnity. Afterward we adjourned to the Theatre 



AT THE AMERICAN- EMBARKATION" CENTER 79 

Municipale for a full religious service with a sermon. 
Two of the shows of the festival leave were too 
big for the hall of the Jewish Welfare Board, so 
we were offered the Y. D. Hut, the great auditorium 
of the Y. M. C. A., which had been named after 
the famous 26th Division. One of these entertain- 
ments was the last performance in France of the 
''Liberty Players" of the 77th Division, who were 
about to leave for the States that very week. 

Finally my work in France drew to a close. On 
the first of May, 1919, I received the orders for 
which I had been hoping so long. I was to be re- 
lieved and sent home to America. Eabbis in the 
uniform of the Jewish Welfare Board were now 
at hand, the number of men in France was decreas- 
ing, and my request to be relieved could at last 
be granted. A final two days in Paris for a confer- 
ence with the heads of the J. W. B., Chaplain Voor- 
sanger and Colonel Harry Cutler, another day at Le 
Mans to turn my records and office over to Eabbis 
Kaufman and Leonard Rothstein, and then I was off 
to Brest. I had the special good fortune of being 
held in that busy and rather uninviting place for only 
four days and then finding passage assigned me on 
the slow but comfortable No or dam, of the Holland- 
American Line. My last duty in Brest was to con- 
duct a funeral, in the absence of the post chaplain, of 
four sailors drowned in an accident just outside the 
harbor. We had a guard of honor, a bugler, all 
naval, and I had the rare experience of an army 
chaplain conducting a navy funeral, as well as of a 
rabbi burying four Christian boys. 

We were at sea twelve days altogether, being de- 
layed by a gale of three days and also by a call for 



80 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

aid, which took us a hundred miles out of our course 
without finding the sender of the message. We en- 
tered New York harbor late one evening, and an- 
chored off Staten Island for the night. There was 
little sleep that night; the officers danced with the 
cabin passengers, while the men sang on the decks 
below. The next morning early every one was at 
the rail as we steamed in past the Statue of Liberty, 
which stood for so much to us now, for which we had 
longed so often, and which some of our company had 
never expected to see again. After the customary 
half day of formalities at the dock, we were directed 
to different camps for discharge according to our 
branches of the service. I reported at Camp Dix, 
New Jersey, where I was mustered out of service, 
receiving my honorable discharge on May 26th, 1919, 
eleven months from the date of my commission, nine 
of which were spent with the American Expedition- 
ary Forces. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS 

MY experiences, wMch were fairly typical 
throughout, showed clearly the great need 
for Jewish chaplains in the army over- 
seas. Even my trip on leave to the Riviera was 
typical, showing the effect of release from discipline 
combined with a pleasure trip on thousands of our 
soldiers, most of whom needed it far more than I; 
for the privileges of a chaplain, just a little greater 
than those of most officers, certainly had prevented 
my morale falhng as low as that of many of the 
enlisted men. The Jewish chaplain was not only 
a concession to the very considerable body of Jewish 
citizens who felt that they should be represented 
in the military organization as well as men of other 
faiths ; he had a definite contribution to make to the 
moral and spiritual welfare of the forces. We had 
to conduct Jewish religious services for both holy- 
days and ordinary seasons, to assist the dying Jew, 
and to pray for him at his grave. We had to defend 
the Jewish boys in the rare cases of prejudice against 
them, or, what was just as important, to clear up 
such accusations when they were unfounded. We 
had to serve the special needs of the Jewish soldier, 
whatever they might be, at the same time that we 
did the chaplain's duty toward all soldiers with 
whom we might be thrown. 

81 



82 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

The American Expeditionary Forces never had 
sufficient chaplains at any time for the work that was 
planned for them. The proportion desired by the 
G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office and approved by the war 
department was one chaplain to every thousand men, 
or one to an infantry battalion, besides those as- 
signed to administrative work as senior . chaplains 
of divisions and areas, and the very large number 
detailed to hospitals. The total number of chaplains 
who went to France was 1285, just half the number 
needed by this program, and from this total we 
must subtract a considerable group of deaths, 
wounds and other casualties. The chaplains' corps 
was undermanned at all times, — we Jews were 
simply the most conspicuous example. Compared 
to the general proportion of one chaplain to every 
two thousand men, and the ideal one of a chaplain 
to every thousand, we had one chaplain to every 
eight thousand men, and those tremendous numbers 
were not even concentrated in a few units but scat- 
tered through every company, every battery, and 
every hospital ward in the army. 

The British forces contained one Jewish chaplain 
for every army headquarters, or nine in all. I had 
the pleasure of meeting Rabbi Barnett, the chief 
Jewish chaplain in the B. E. F., although I never 
met his predecessor. Major Adler. Through their 
long experience and the cooperation of the Chief 
Rabbi of England, the English chaplains were well 
equipped with suitable prayerbooks and other mate- 
rial, which I obtained from one of them for the 
use of our men while I was on the British front. 
Still, even with their larger proportion of chap- 
lains to the Jews in service, the lack of transporta- 



THE JEWISH CHAPLAIN'S OVERSEAS 83 

tion facilities and the tremendous rush of war-time, 
especially at the front and in the hospitals, made 
their actual duties impossible of complete fulfill- 
ment. 

To cover the enormous field before us was plainly 
impossible. The chaplain could only work day by 
day, clearing a little pathway ahead of him but never 
making an impression on the great jungle about. 
When I first reached France, I grew accustomed to 
the greeting: ''Why, you're the first Jewish chap- 
lain I've met in France!" That was hard enough 
then, but it grew harder when the same words were 
addressed me in Brest just before sailing and on 
shipboard on the way home. And yet it was in- 
evitable that twelve chaplains could not meet per- 
sonally the hundred thousand Jewish soldiers scat- 
tered through the two millions in the American uni- 
form through the length and breadth of France. 
Under these circumstances we all feel a natural pride 
at the work accomplished against adverse conditions. 
I for one feel that we did all that twelve men simi- 
larly situated could possibly have done, and I gladly 
bring my personal tribute to those others, chaplains, 
welfare workers, officers, and enlisted men, whose 
cooperation doubled and trebled the actual extent 
and effectiveness of our work. This includes es- 
pecially the Christian chaplains and welfare 
workers ; their own field was great enough to take 
all their time and energy, but they were always 
ready to turn aside for a moment to lend a hand 
to us, in order that the labors of twelve men serv- 
ing their faith in the great American army might 
not be quite futile. 

The first of the Jewish chaplains to reach France 



84 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" FKANCE 

was Eabbi Elkan C. Voorsanger, who gave up his 
pulpit in St. Louis in April, 1917, to join the St. 
Louis Base Hospital as a private in the medical 
corps. As his hospital unit was the third to reach 
France in May, 1917, Eabbi Voorsanger was one of 
the first five hundred American soldiers in the 
American Expeditionary Forces. In the medical 
corps he rose from private to sergeant, gaining at 
the same time an intimate first-hand knowledge of 
the problems of the man in the ranks. When the 
bill was passed by Congress in November, 1917, 
ordering the appointment of chaplains of sects not at 
that time represented in the army, Rabbi Voorsanger 
was the first Jew commissioned under its provisions. 
He was examined by a special board appointed over- 
seas by General Pershing at the direction of the 
Secretary of War ; his commission was dated Novem- 
ber 24th, 1917. In January 1918 he was assigned 
to the 41st Division and in March to Base Hospital 
101 at St. Nazaire. While posted there he conducted 
his first important service overseas in Passover 
1918, the first official Jewish service held in the A. 
E. F. He was assigned to the 77th Division in May 
1918 on their arrival in France where he served with 
a most enviable record, receiving the Croix de 
Guerre and being recommended for the D. S. M. 
for exceptional courage and devotion to duty in time 
of danger. The midnight patrol on the banks of 
the Meuse, by which he won these honors, was both 
a courageous and a useful exploit. He was pro- 
moted to Senior Chaplain of his division with the 
rank of Captain, the only Jew so distinguished. 
Finally in April 1919, instead of accompanying his 
division home he resigned his commission to become 



THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS 85 

the head of the overseas work of the Jewish Welfare 
Board. He returned to the United States in Septem- 
ber 1919, after two and a half years with the Ameri- 
can Expeditionary Forces. Since that time he has 
continued his self-sacrifice and his devotion to his 
people in the service of the Joint Distribution Com- 
mittee for the Relief of Jews in eastern Europe. 
In 1920 and 1921 he conducted two relief units to 
Poland and carried on their life-saving work. 

When I arrived in France, Chaplain Voorsanger 
was stationed at Chaumont for the time being, to 
take charge of the arrangements for the Jewish 
holydays of 1918. I have already described how 
these were carried out, by designating central points 
for services, getting in touch with the French rabbis 
and synagogue authorities and assigning the few 
American rabbis at hand to fill in the deficiencies. 

I was the fifth Jewish chaplain to reach France. 
Those who preceded me were first Voorsanger and 
then Chaplains David Tannenbaum of the 82nd Divi- 
sion, Harry S. Davidowitz of the 78th and Louis 
I. Egelson of the 91st. All these men served at the 
front, as did also Chaplain Benjamin Friedman of 
the 77th Division, who took up the Jewish work of 
that unit when Chaplain Voorsanger was promoted 
to the Senior Chaplaincy. Chaplain Davidowitz was 
the only Jewish chaplain to be wounded, receiving 
severe injuries from shrapnel; these put him in the 
hospital for several months and occasioned his being 
sent back home, invalided, the first of us all. The 
others, in order of their arrival, were Chaplains 
Jacob Krohngold, of the 87th Division ; Israel Bettan 
of the 26th Division ; Harry Richmond, at the port of 
Bordeaux; Elias N. Rabinowitz, at Blois; Solomon 



86 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FEANCE 

B. Freehof, at First Army Headquarters ; and James 
Gr. Heller, at Le Mans. The last two left New York 
on the day following the armistice, so that on Novem- 
ber eleventh, 1918, the Jews of America were repre- 
sented overseas by just ten chaplains and two repre- 
sentatives of the Jewish Welfare Board, Eev. Dr. 
Hyman Gr. Enelow and Mr. John Goldhaar. 

The twelve of us represented all three Jewish 
seminaries in this country, although the majority 
were naturally from the oldest, the Hebrew Union 
College at Cincinnati, where Eabbi Freehof was even 
a member of the faculty. We came from every sec- 
tion of the country, east, west and south, including 
Krohngold and myself from little towns in Kentucky 
and Richmond \from Trinjidad, Cdlorado. Rabbi 
Richmond had the unusual distinction of not claim- 
ing exemption in the draft as a minister. He there- 
fore entered the service as a private and was pro- 
moted to the chaplaincy just before his division went 
overseas. 

The chaplains who were commissioned before the 
armistice and served in the United States were thir- 
teen in number; Rabbis Nathan E. Barasch, Harry 
W. Etteleson, Max Felshin, Samuel Fredmau, 
Raphael Goldenstein, Abram Hirschberg, Morris 
S. Lazaron, Emil W. Leipziger, JuKus A. Liebert, 
Abraham Nowak, Jerome Rosen, Leonard W. Roth- 
stein, Israel J. Sarasohn. Three of them. Rabbis 
Rothstein, Felshin and Barasch, soon after resigned 
their commissions and came overseas as representa- 
tives of the Jewish Welfare Board. When the great 
need for morale agencies was realized after the ar- 
mistice, the War Department refused to relax its 
prohibition against the transportation of more chap- 



THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS 87 

lains or other special branches of the service, but 
favored the passage of large numbers of welfare 
workers instead. Eabbi David Groldberg was the 
only Jewish chaplain in the navy, with the rank of 
Lieutenant, junior grade; he served at sea on the 
transport. President Grant. 

We were almost all reassigned as our divisions left 
for home and as the need grew in various areas, 
especially in the base posts and the Army of Oc- 
cupation. Chaplain Davidowitz was sent home 
wounded, and Friedman accompanied his own divi- 
sion back. Krohngold, Bettan, Heller and Freehof 
joined the Army of Occupation in the order named, 
although for a long time Rabbi Krohngold was the 
only Jewish chaplain there. Rabbi Egelson left his 
division for the port of St. Nazaire, Rabinowitz was 
transferred from Blois to St. Aignan, and I was left 
behind at Le Mans together with Heller, who shortly 
after was transferred to the Third Army in Ger- 
many. Tannenbaum while stationed at Bordeaux 
was also, by special arrangement, appointed as 
supervisor of the Jewish Welfare Board for that 
area; and Voorsanger was mustered out of service 
to become executive director of their overseas work. 
Rabbi Richmond alone held the same post to the very 
end of his overseas service. 

As I have mentioned repeatedly in my personal 
narrative, so long as a man was assigned to one 
division he had some chance of establishing personal 
contacts with his men and doing effective work 
among them ; as soon as he was assigned to an area, 
he had to spread himself thin over a wide expanse 
of territory and could cover it in only the most cur- 
sory fashion. The problem was larger than the 



88 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

matter of transportation, although that was serious 
enough. The larger aspect lay in the number of 
men, the number of companies, the infinite possibil- 
ity of individual service if one were only able to 
know all these soldiers personally, to understand 
their needs, and to minister to them. Every hos- 
pital ward with its forty beds presented forty dis- 
tinct individual problems, — often, indeed, more than 
forty. Sometimes the same man would need pay, 
mail, home allotment, reading matter, and contact 
with his original unit and comrades. With the con- 
stant shifting to other hospitals further from the 
front and then to convalescent camps, the ward 
would always contain a new forty men and the 
work was always beginning over again. This situa- 
tion was not in the least unique. The hospital 
simply represents the extreme case of what was true 
in a less degree in every branch of the service and 
every unit. 

During the post-armistice period I had several 
very agreeable reunions with my fellow chaplains, 
which were at the same time valuable for our 
common information and cooperation. At my very 
first visit to Le Mans, on December 6th, I quite 
unexpectedly met Chaplains Freehof, Bettan, and 
Heller, as well as Rabbi Enelow, who had just come 
to the city for the dedication of the J. W. B. head- 
quarters. I devoured their comparatively fresh 
news from home as eagerly as Voorsanger had ab- 
sorbed mine several months before, when he was al- 
ready entering his second year in France. The 
second time was on the last day of the year, when 
I met Rabbis Friedman, Egelson and Rabinowitz in 
Paris, all coming there as I did for the cars which 



THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS 89 

the J. W. B. had ready for us. At the same time 
Rabbis Martin Meyer of San Francisco and Abram 
Simon of Washington were in the city, both captains 
in the American Red Cross. Their six months of 
duty in France had just expired and they were then 
making ready for their return home. We all had din- 
ner together at one of the famous Parisian restau- 
rants land discussed war and peace, France, America 
and Israel, until the early closing laws of war-time 
sent us all out on the boulevards and home. Chap- 
lain Egelson and I saw the New Year in together, 
first hearing ''Romeo and Juliet" at the Opera and 
then watching the mad crowds on the streets, headed 
always by American or Australian soldiers, the mad- 
dest of them all. 

The most important meeting, however, was the 
one called by Chaplain Voorsanger for February 
24th at the Paris headquarters of the Jewish Wel- 
fare Board. Six chaplains were present, Voor- 
sanger, Tannenbaum, Richmond, Heller, Bettan and 
I, together with Mr. John Goldhaar of the J. W. B. 
Our chief object was to work out a program of co- 
operation with the J. W. B., our second, to discuss 
our personal methods for the benefit of our own 
work. Voorsanger was chairman; we decided to 
form a Jewish Chaplains' Association, which never 
developed afterward; and planned to hold another 
meeting soon, which owing to military exigencies, 
we never did. But we did adopt a program of co- 
operation with the J. W. B., which indicates the 
mutual dependency and the closeness of contact 
which were almost uniformly the case. Our pro- 
gram provided that the J. W. B. should submit to 
the chaplain the weekly report of the area in which 



90 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FKANGE 

he was stationed and should have relations with 
the military authorities through him. The chaplain, 
on the other hand, was to make suggestions to the 
worker in his area, and in exceptional cases to the 
Paris office and was to be in complete charge of 
all Jewish religious work in his area, although re- 
ligious workers were personally responsible to their 
superior in the J. W. B. Finally, provision was 
made for frequent conferences between the chap- 
lain and the J. W. B. worker in the same organiza- 
tion. This program was approved, not only nomi- 
nally but also in spirit by all the Jewish chaplains 
and welfare workers throughout the A. E. F. I 
know that in Le Mans our contact was so close that 
Mr. Rivitz instructed his religious workers to report 
directly to me for assignment of services and other 
division of labor, and I included their work with 
mine in my weekly reports to my senior chaplain. 

On my final visit to Paris at the end of April I 
found a host of Jewish celebrities gathered together 
in the interests if the Jewish Welfare Board, the 
Joint Distribution Committee for the relief of Jews 
in Eastern Europe, the American Jewish Committee, 
and the American Jewish Congress. At the office of 
the J. W. B., I had a farewell conference with Rabbi 
Voorsanger and Colonel Harry Cutler, giving them 
a summary of the latest situation in my area. 
Colonel Cutler was busy as chairman of the J. W. 
iB., one of the American Jewish Congress delegates 
to the Peace Conference, and a member of the Joint 
Distribution Committee. I met my old friend. Rabbi 
Isaac Landman, who was reporting the Peace Con- 
ference for his paper, the American Hebrew, and he 
introduced me in turn to Miss Harriet Lowenstein, 



THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVEESEAS 91 

at that time the Paris purchasing- agent of the Joint 
Distribution Committee, especially in the important 
work of buying supplies originally sent to Europe 
for the use of the American forces. I encountered 
also three of the active workers of American Jewry, 
sent to represent us before the Peace Conference in 
such matters as might concern the Jews; Judge 
Julian Mack, representing the American Jewish Con- 
gress; Dr. Cyrus Adler, for the American Jewish 
Committee; and Mr. Louis Marshall, a representa- 
tive of both organizations. The two last were also 
active in the Jewish Welfare Board, and Dr. Adler, 
vice-chairman of the Board, took charge as the 
representative of the Board after Colonel Cutler's 
departure for the States. Even on the ship going 
home I met two Jewish workers, Eabbi B. Levinthal 
of the American Jewish Congress delegation and 
Mr. Morris Engelman, returning from his work in 
Holland for the Joint Distribution Committee. By 
that time world Jewry was fully aroused and its 
delegates were busy, both at the seat of the Peace 
Conference and in the lands of eastern Europe, 
where Jewish suffering was becoming daily more 
intense. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. F. 

THE Jewish Welfare Board in the United States 
Army and Navy was the great authorized wel- 
fare agency to represent the Jews of America, 
as the Yonng Men's Christian Association repre- 
sented the Protestants and the Knights of Columbus 
the Catholics. It was organized on April 9, 1917, 
just three days after the declaration of war, and was 
acknowledged by the Department of War as the offi- 
cial welfare body of the Jews in September, 1917. 
It was not so much a new organization as a new 
activity of a number of the leading Jewish organiza- 
tions of the United States: the United Synagogue 
of America, the Union of American Hebrew Congre- 
gations, the Central Conference of American Eabbis, 
the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the 
Agudath ha-Rabbonim, the Jewish Publication So- 
ciety of America, the council of Y. M. H. and Kin- 
dred Associations, the Council of Jewish Women, 
the Independent Order B'nai B'rith, the Jewish 
Chautauqua Society, the Order Brith Abraham, the 
National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, the New 
York Board of Jewish Ministers, the Independent 
Order Brith Sholom, the Independent Order Brith 
Abraham, and the Women's League of the United 
Synagogue. In the camps and cantonments at home 
it did a large and important piece of work, establish- 

92 



JEWISH WELFAKE BOARD IN" THE A. E. F. 93 

ing 490 representatives at 200 different posts and 
putting up 48 buildings for its work at various im- 
portant points. This great field, however, is outside 
the scope of the present study, which can take up 
only the overseas activities of the J. W. B. 

One home organization must be mentioned in this 
place, the Chaplains ' Committee which made recom- 
mendations to the War Department for the appoint- 
ment of Jewish chaplains. This was composed of 
representatives of the leading religious bodies of 
the country : for the Central Conference of American 
Rabbis, Dr. William Rosenau and Dr. Louis Gross- 
man; the United Synagogue of America, Dr. Elias 
L. Solomon ; Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis, Dr. 
Maurice H. Harris ; the New York Board of Jewish 
Ministers, Dr. David de Sola Pool; the Union of 
Orthodox Jewish Congregations, Dr. Bernard 
Drachman ; the Agudath ha-Rabbonim, Rabbi M. S. 
Margolies. Dr. Cyrus Adler, the Acting President 
of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 
was chairman of this committee. They had the task 
of reviewing the applications of one hundred and 
forty-nine rabbis, of whom thirty-four were recom- 
mended to the War Department and twenty-five were 
commissioned by the time the armistice put an end 
to more appointments. I have already given in 
some detail the story of the twelve of us who served 
in the A. E. F., while the other thirteen did their 
service in cantonments in /the United States. 

The Jewish Welfare Board began to take up the 
overseas problem as early as August, 1917, when 
Rabbi Voorsanger, then Sergeant in the Army Medi- 
cal Corps, received a letter from Colonel Harry Cut- 
ler, asking for such information as he had at com- 



94 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FKANCE 

mand and also how far he might be able to cooperate 
personally with the Jewish work. Some months 
later, after Voorsanger had been appointed chaplain 
he was again asked for information. This time he 
was in a position to give a great deal together with 
recommendations. A certain amount of supplies 
was furnished him at once, but no welfare workers 
were sent until the overseas commission had made 
its investigation and report. 

The overseas commission of the Jewish Welfare 
Board, consisting of Congressman Isaac N. Siegel, 
chairman, Eabbi H. G. Enelow, Rabbi Jacob Kohn, 
and Mr. John Goldhaar, secretary, went to France 
in July, 1918, and were the first friends I met when 
I reached Paris. Their general work was to study 
the nature and scope of the overseas field so as to 
make recommendations on their return ; incidentally 
to this, they were to establish contact with kindred 
organizations and with the army, open headquarters, 
and cooperate with the chaplains in the field in the 
holyday services. They made their surveys during 
the summer by constant traveling and numerous 
interviews with officers and welfare workers as well 
as with Jews in the service. Congressman Siegel 
made a trip to General Pershing's headquarters 
and to the sector then occupied by the 77th Division, 
where Chaplain Voorsanger was taken into consulta- 
tion regarding the problems ahead. The Congress- 
man then returned to America, while Mr. Goldhaar 
was left as executive secretary pro tem of the Paris 
office and Rabbis Kohn and Enelow conducted holy- 
day services at different points. Afterward Dr. 
Kohn also returned home, and Dr. Enelow devoted 
himself to field work, establishing welfare centers 



JEWISH WELFAEE BOARD IN THE A. E. E. 95 

at various points. Later on, when tlie army educa- 
tional program was undertaken, he became the J. 
W. B. representative on the faculty of the Army 
University at Beaune. Dr. Enelow was recom- 
mended for a chaplaincy by the J. W. B. Chaplains' 
Committee, but was among those prevented by the 
armistice from receiving the rank. Meanwhile he 
labored in any capacity at hand, for he was deter- 
mined not to return to America while work remained 
to be done among the soldiers in France. 

All this was entirely inadequate for the task at 
hand, as we all realized at the time. At that time 
the J. W. B. was functioning in the overseas forces, 
not as a separate entity, but through the Y. M. C. 
A. This naturally prevented the full expansion of 
its independent viewpoint or the direct contact with 
the army officials which alone could give it standing. 
The arrival of the overseas commission made some 
difference in this respect, but the J. W. B. was not 
fully recognized as one of the responsible overseas 
welfare organizations until Colonel Harry Cutler, 
its national chairman, had come to France and pre- 
sented his case at General Pershing's headquarters. 
There were more than the usual difficulties with 
passports and vises, owing to the German or Aus- 
trian ancestry of some of the most desirable 
workers ; this was finally overcome by the chairman 
of the Board vouching personally for the loyalty of 
every individual recommended. The selection was 
limited, as with all welfare organizations, to men 
not subject to draft. With these obstacles the diffi- 
culties proved for the time insuperable. 

This situation made it impossible for the J. W. B. 
to undertake any independent work before the ar- 



96 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

mistice. It could only support and assist the work 
already being done by chaplains and by the dozens 
of ready volunteers among the officers and enlisted 
men themselves. The early history of Jewish wel- 
fare work abroad is that of a scattered band of eager, 
self-sacrificing workers who gave up their own time 
to labor incessantly for the welfare of the Jewish 
men in the service. The first task was to acquaint 
the soldiers with the fact that there was a Jewish 
Welfare Board, even though its Paris staff consisted 
only of Mr. Goldhaar, one stenographer and one 
office boy. Advertisements in the Stars and Stripes 
and the Paris editions of American newspapers and 
correspondence with Jewish and non-Jewish chap- 
lains, American, French and British, did the work. 
Letters began to pour in for supplies, advice, in- 
formation, and a great correspondence school of 
welfare work began. 

The center of this work was naturally the Paris 
club rooms, in connection with the office at 41 Boule- 
varde Haussman. Mr. John Goldhaar was in im- 
mediate charge of both, with a mountain of mail on 
his desk from every part of the A. E. F. and a con- 
stant crowd of doughboys outside in the club rooms. 
His indefatigable labors and his profound sympathy 
for the boys in the service won him thousands of 
friends through the length and breadth of the forces. 
He continued in this position, with its constantly 
growing duties, until Captain Voorsanger was ap- 
pointed Overseas Director of the J. W. B., when Mr. 
Goldhaar was made Overseas Field Director and put 
in charge of the field work. His Medaille d'Hon- 
neur from the French government was earned by the 
hardest and most valuable kind of war work. Mr. 



JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. P. 97 

Goldhaar gathered about him in the Paris club 
rooms a group of American Jewesses and a few of 
their French coreligionists as an entertainment com- 
mittee to make the boys feel at home. Every after- 
noon they served tea — a little thing in itself, but 
a big one to lonesome boys without a friend nearby. 
It meant much effort, too, on the part of the ladies 
themselves, especially their leaders, Mrs. Ealph 
Stern, Mrs. Zacharie Eudlitz, Mrs. Engelman and 
Mrs. Hertz. Some of them came from the suburbs 
every afternoon, rain or shine, to render this de- 
voted service. Monsieur and Madame Henri Boden- 
heimer opened their hearts and their homes, both in 
Paris and Tours, to receive the Americans; every 
Friday evening saw their table crowded with lone- 
some "buck" privates, especially the ones whom 
other people would overlook. With the assistance 
of these same people hospital visitation was begun. 
A registration book in the office began to fill up with 
the names of Jewish soldiers and officers, and letters 
sent home recorded the fact of their visits and often 
established an important connection for the welfare 
of the men themselves. 

At the same time, among the hundreds of letter- 
writers and visitors eager to do something, anything, 
for their fellow-soldiers, a few began to stand out 
here and there as effective and central workers. 
The soldiers were always ready to cooperate; I 
found that out from my first service at Nevers to 
my last at Le Mans. So it was only natural that 
far more of them volunteered for this work than 
I can possibly mention. I shall simply have to 
speak of a few outstanding names, and leave it to 
the imagination of the reader to multiply these ex- 



98 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

amples many times. In Chaumont there was Field 
Clerk A. S. Weisberger, formerly of Scranton, Pa. 
*' Sandy" Weisberger mimeographed a little news- 
paper, the ''Junior Argus," for his fellow-soldiers 
from Scranton; organized the Jewish soldiers at 
Q. H. Q. for services and sociability; and referred 
any number of men to the Jewish Welfare Board 
for such advice or assistance as it could give. He 
was later mustered out of service to become a J. W. 
B. worker and met his death most tragically by an 
accident in the Paris headquarters, during the fes- 
tivities of Passover week, 1919. 

In Dijon there was a group, Major Jacob Jablons, 
Medical Corps ; Miss Bessie Spanner, a regular army 
nurse; and Sergeant J. Howard Lichtenstein, of 
Baker Co. 339. They organized hospital visiting in 
the many hospital centers in that area, celebration of 
the high holydays, Simchath Torah parties, and 
group gatherings of all kinds. This work was spon- 
taneous and needed only supplies of stationery, 
prayerbooks and the like to make it completely effec- 
tive, furnishing a fertile field for the welfare workers 
when they opened their community center there. By 
that time the two last were also in the service of the 
Welfare Board, Miss Spanner in the unique position 
of head of the women workers overseas. In Tours 
the outstanding figure was Colonel Max R. Wainer, 
at that time a Major. He gathered a group of active 
workers among the soldiers, used the local synagogue 
as a center, and organized a full welfare program, in- 
cluding Friday evening services and round table dis- 
cussions, hospital visiting, and distribution of sta- 
tionery and prayerbooks. I dropped in at Tours for 
a day to arrange for the holyday services ; the local 



JEWISH WELPAEE BOAKD IN" THE A. E. F. 99 

conunittee of soldiers saw that special meals were 
provided for the Jewish men ; and the bills were paid 
by the Jewish Welfare Board. 

In the Le Mans area, which before the armistice 
was used as a classification camp from which soldiers 
were sent as replacements to units in the field, the 
first Jewish work was started by Sergeant Charles S. 
Eivitz of Army Post Office 762 through the aid and 
assistance of his commanding officer, Lieutenant 
Willing of Cleveland. Lieutenant (later Captain) 
Willing, though a non-Jew, had taken a deep in- 
terest in the Jewish men in his unit while still in 
camp in the States and continued this interest to 
France. With the approval of Gen. Glenn, in com- 
mand of the area, Eivitz was detailed to the Jewish 
Welfare Board under the supervision of the senior 
chaplain of the area and Capt. Willing. Sergeant 
Eivitz was not a social worker at all, but had one 
. source of strength which made his good will effective. 
He was a soldier, had attained his sergeancy through 
force of personality; he knew what the soldiers 
wanted and insisted on giving it to them. He rented 
a chateau as a club house largely on his own respon- 
sibility, and the Jewish Welfare Board soon found 
that both the structure and his method of conducting 
it were excellent. His chief assistant was Corporal 
George Eooby, who after his discharge from the ser- 
vice volunteered for the first unit of the Joint Distri- 
bution Committee in Poland, and continued serving 
Jewry there. 

In fighting units also the Jewish officers and en- 
listed men were early active in welfare work. Two 
officers occur to me whose work I saw personally ; un- 
doubtedly there were many others with the same sort 



100 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FEANCE 

of interest. Captain Leon Schwartz of the 123rd In- 
fantry, 31st Division, was active from the outset in 
his own division and the Le Mans area. Later, dur- 
ing the time when the army was trying every means 
to keep up the morale of the troops, and the tempo- 
rary organization of '' Comrades in Service" was be- 
ing pushed through the G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office, 
Captain Schwartz was assigned to this work as the 
Jewish representative, and addressed hundreds of 
gatherings of soldiers, together with the Catholic 
and Protestant spokesmen for morale and comrade- 
ship. In the 26th Division, the ''Yankee Division," 
Captain Bernard I. Gorfinkle of the Judge Advo- 
cate's office was one of the first and most effective 
Jewish workers in France. Captain Gorfinkle or- 
ganized an overseas branch of the New England 
Y. M. H. A., deriving his first funds from the Young 
Men's Hebrew Associations of New England. La- 
ter, when the Jewish Welfare Board arrived, he 
joined forces with its Paris office for the benefit of 
his men. Mr. Goldhaar tells how surprised he was 
after the battle of Chateau Thierry to be highly com- 
plimented for the work of the J. W. B. in marking 
the Jewish graves. Of course, at that time no such 
work had yet been undertaken. On investigation he 
found that the graves of Jews of the 26th Division 
who fell in action had been marked with a crude 
Magen David by their comrades under the initiative 
of Captain Gorfinkle. 

Wherever a Jewish chaplain existed the Welfare 
Board had a means of contact with the men. And 
here and there throughout the A. E. F., volunteers 
sprang up, establishing their little groups and doing 
their own work, large or small. In the 42nd Divi- 



JEWISH WELFAKE BOARD IN" THE A. E. P. 101 

sion, to cite only one more example, some of the boys 
came together and held holyday services during the 
actual campaign, and afterward instituted their own 
hospital visiting. But then came the armistice, and 
at the same time the passport difficulty was disposed 
of. Workers began to come ; new plans were being 
issued daily by the army authorities ; the whole view- 
point of the work was revolutionized and the facili- 
ties suddenly enlarged. 

The determining factor was that troops were no 
longer being scattered for training and fighting but 
concentrated for their return home. Hence the J. 
W. B. centered its work on the American Embarka- 
tion Center and the base ports, established a line of 
centers in the chief points of the Service of Supply, 
and went with the Army of Occupation to Grermany. 
The last to be supplied with workers were some of 
the combat divisions not in the organized areas. 
Thus the work grew. The club-house at Le Mans 
was dedicated on November 28, 1918, in the presence 
of Major Greneral Glenn, with speeches by Dr. E.iie- 
low and the prefect of the Department of the Sarthe, 
and a vaudeville show and refreshments to wind up 
the evening. Buildings were rented in the ports of 
Brest, St. Nazaire, Bordeaux and Marseilles, and a 
line of centers established across France, from Le 
Mans on through Tours, St. Aignan, Gievres, 
Bourges, Beaune, Is-sur-Tille, Dijon and Chaumont. 
The headquarters for the Army of Occupation were 
at Coblenz, where the B 'nai B 'rith Building was em- 
ployed and seven huts established through the area. 
Finally as workers continued coming, they were 
assigned to seven of the combat divisions, staying 
with them in their movements through France and 



102 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

saying farewell only after the troops were embarked 
for home. These divisions were the 5th, 6th, 7th, 
29th, 33rd, 79th, and 81st. When Antwerp became 
an important port for army supplies a center was 
established there as well. 

Altogether the Jewish Welfare Board employed 
102 men and 76 women in 57 different centers in the 
American Expeditionary Forces. Of this personnel, 
24 men and one woman. Miss Spanner, were mus- 
tered out of the service for this purpose, while the 
others were transported from the States. Of the 
buildings, 23 were located in towns and were rented ; 
the other 34 were provided by cooperation of other 
organizations, 28 by the U. S Army, two by the 
Knights of Columbus, two by the Red Cross, one by 
the Y. M. C. A. and one by the Belgian Government. 
In camps rough barracks or tents were usually the 
thing; in cities the equipment varied, and in some 
places was complete with kitchen, dance hall, writing 
room, and offices. 

I can speak of the large work in the Le Mans area 
through personal acquaintance. There the person- 
ality of Mr. Rivitz was the decisive factor. With 
his unerring knowledge of the soldier, he established 
at once the policy of everything free, which was soon 
adopted by the J. W. B. throughout its overseas 
work. Religious services were provided, hot choco- 
late and cigarettes served, contact established with 
thousands of soldiers for the personal needs which 
they brought to the welfare worker. As the needs of 
the area grew, other centers were established. 
When the 77th Division, with its thousands of Jews, 
was in the area, five huts were established in its var- 
ious regiments and the men provided with every- 



JEWISH WELFARE BOAED IN THE A. E. F. 103 

thing possible right at home. In other units where 
the Jews were more scattered, the centers were at 
the Division Headquarters. In cases where units 
stopped in our area for only a few days or a week, an 
automobile load of supplies with two workers was 
sent out on an extensive trip, meeting the boys and 
giving them as much personal cheer and physical 
sustenance as possible under the circumstances. 

I have described this type of activity several times 
in connection with my own personal story. Here 
and there, however, special personalities or incidents 
stand out in the constant, exhausting labor to which 
the workers subjected themselves in the terrific rush 
of the morale agencies during that period of waiting 
to go home. In Germany at the head of the work 
was Mr. Leo Mielziner, son of the late Professor 
Moses Mielziner of the Hebrew Union College, a man 
of high reputation as an artist and of commanding 
personality. Mr. Mielziner, who had two sons in the 
service, conducted the work in the Army of Occupa- 
tion with the finest spirit of fellow-feeling for the en- 
listed man. Under his direction the Jewish Welfare 
Board maintained such a high standard that when 
the Eed Cross closed its railroad canteens in the oc- 
cupied territory the J. W. B. was requested by the 
army to take them over. 

At Gievres, where the great bakeries of the A. E. 
F. were located, the J. W. B. was the center for the 
bakery units. So when Purim came both Jews and 
non-Jews cooperated in baking a gigantic cake for 
the celebration. The cake, which had to be baked in 
sections, occupied not only the stage but also an addi- 
tion made for the purpose. It was cut into 10,000 
portions and every man in that camp received a slice. 



104 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

As the crowning achievement of the A. E. F. bak- 
eries, that Purim cake received a reputation of its 
own. 

The Paris office, and still later the club rooms on 
Eue Clement Marot, were the entertainment center 
for the Paris district and all its many visitors. 
After its formal opening on Simchath Torah, every 
Sunday afternoon an entertainment was provided, 
with vaudeville, speeches or dancing, concluding with 
the famous chocolate layer cake made by volunteer 
workers among the American women living in Paris. 
The wounded were visited in the nearby hospitals 
and usually a group of convalescents was present in 
the front seats at the entertainment. The registra- 
tions in the big book served to unite many friends 
and brothers who had lost track of each other in the 
constantly moving wilderness of the A. E. F. A 
family wrote in from Kansas City that their son was 
complaining at not hearing from home ; when the J. 
W. B. wrote him, it was his first news from home in 
his six months as a ''casual" in France. Through 
the Paris office and the workers in the field the whole 
immense field of personal service and entertainment 
had to be covered, including much of the same work 
which was being done by the chaplains and in addi- 
tion the furnishing of immense amounts of supplies 
which we and others could use up but could not pro- 
vide. 

During the high holydays the Paris clubrooms pre- 
sented a remarkable mingling of Jewish soldiers of 
all the allied armies. Mixed with the olive drab and 
the navy blue of the United States were the Austra- 
lians with their hats rakishly turned up on the side, 
the gray capes of the Italian, the French troops from 



JEWISH WELFAKE BOARD IN THE A. E. F. 105 

Morocco, the Russian in Cossack uniform, and a few 
Belgians. During Chanuka, which coincided with 
Thanksgiving in 1918, special services were held at 
the synagogue in the Rue de la Victoire, the largest 
in France. The synagogue was crowded with 
French men and women, all at a high pitch of enthu- 
siasm, and with 350 American soldiers, the heroes of 
the occasion. The impressive service of the French 
rabbi was followed by a brilliant Thanksgiving ser- 
mon by Chaplain Voorsanger, who had been invited 
to come to Paris for the occasion. After services 
turkey and pumpkin pie were served at the club 
rooms, and while I was not there that day, I can tes- 
tify that the pumpkin pie served at the Jewish Wel- 
fare Board on New Year's day, 1919, was one of 
the most poignant reminders of the United States 
during my stay abroad. 

Due to the intense pressure of the situation, the 
actual volume of work done by the J. W. B. was 
surprisingly large. The entertainments and dances 
conducted at every center numbered fully 5,000, with 
an aggregate attendance of 2,750,000. Among the 
conspicuous units which toured the A. E. F. under 
Welfare Board auspices, was "Who Can Tell?'* 
the Second Army show, which was underwritten 
by request of the Welfare Officer and was one of 
the most elaborate of the army musical comedies, 
with a full complement of chorus girls acted by 
husky doughboys; this production toured for five 
weeks and while in Paris was seen by President 
and Mrs. Wilson. There was the "Dovetail 
Troupe," a vaudeville unit which likewise went on 
tour. And there was the "Tuneful Trio," led by 
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Gideon of Boston, which came 



106 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

to France under the Y. M. C. A., and gave many 
excellent concerts under J. W. B. auspices ; I heard 
one of their programs in Le Mans and felt not only 
the musical excellence of their work, but also the 
special appeal of their program of Yiddish folk 
songs to the Jewish men; this troupe delivered 81 
concerts to fully 60,000 men. The army educational 
work received much support in the various huts, 
and two of the best equipped men in the J. W. B. 
service were assigned to it, Dr. H. Gr. Enelow for 
the University of Beaune, and Professor David 
Blondheim of Johns Hopkins, for a time executive 
director of the overseas work, for the Sorbonne in 
Paris. The bulk of the daily work in the huts 
throughout Prance appears from the fact that 2,500, 
000 letterheads were distributed and refreshments 
served without charge to a total of 3,000,000 men. 

The records of religious work are equally im- 
posing, as 1,740 services were held, with a total at- 
tendance of 180,000 men. The constant cooperation 
with the chaplains meant that far more than these 
were indirectly influenced and aided. Eighteen 
thousand prayer books were distributed and ten 
thousand Bibles. On Passover of 1919 the J. W. 
B. provided unleavened bread (matzoth), which had 
been furnished through the Quartermaster Corps, 
for the Jewish soldiers in the American forces, as 
well as for French and Eussian soldiers. The J. 
W. B. even provided matzoth for six thousand Eus- 
sian prisoners in Germany during Passover of 1919. 
At the request of the military officials, the Jewish 
Welfare Board took charge of welfare work for 
the sixty thousand Eussian troops in France, who 
had come originally as fighting units, but after the 



JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN" THE A. E. F. 107 

withdrawal of Russia from the war had been trans- 
ferred to agricultural labor. No other welfare 
agency had provided for them and so they were as- 
signed to the J. W. B. which had a few workers who 
could speak Russian. It was rather ironical that 
these men in Cossack uniform, most of whom were 
non-Jews, received their only friendly service in 
France at the hands of the despised Jew. 

The whole work of the J. W. B. abroad culminated 
in the Passover of 1919. The most intense moment 
for us chaplains had come during the high holy- 
days when feeling was most profound and suspense 
at its deepest and when, in addition, we had 
to carry the burden almost unaided. By Pass- 
over the feeling had changed, the war was safely 
over, the men were rejoicing at their imminent re- 
turn home, and we had the Jewish Welfare Board 
to arrange our celebration for us. Fully 30,000 of 
the Jews in the A. E. F. ate the Seder dinners fur- 
nished by the Welfare Board. I have already de- 
scribed our celebration at Le Mans, with its many 
features in which the J. W. B. and I worked to- 
gether. A similar program was carried out every- 
where. At Dijon Rabbi Schumacher of the local 
French synagogue, who had been most active 
throughout in the interest of the American soldiers, 
led a great congregation of 2,000 men through the 
rain to the synagogue for worship and afterward to 
the Seder tables. In Germany, the city of Coblenz 
became the leave area for soldiers of Jewish faith 
and was closed for all other furloughs during the 
three days. The Y. M. C. A. and the K. of C. as- 
sisted in giving proper honor to the Jewish festi- 
val and proper pleasures to the Jewish men, and 



108 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

with their aid boat rides on the Rhine, entertain- 
ments in the Festhalle, and all the features of a full 
amusement program were provided. 

Most striking of all was the great Seder at Paris, 
with its crowd of American, Australian, English, 
French and Italian soldiers, some of them former 
prisoners in G^ermany, all of them united in the great 
occasion of their faith. Among the speakers and 
the guests of honor were some of the great leaders 
of Jewry, as well as personal representatives of 
Marshall Foch and General Pershing. Colonel 
Harry Cutler, Mr. Louis Marshall, Judge Julian 
Mack, Dr. Cyrus Adler, and Dr. Chaim Weitzmann 
were there, as well as many other celebrities. At 
that time and in that place the highest honor for 
any man was to worship and eat side by side with 
the soldiers, who had carried love of their country 
and loyalty to their faith to the last extreme of 
service and of sacrifice. 

Decoration Day of 1919, which was observed by 
all France together with its American visitors, was 
another important ceremony for the Jewish Welfare 
Board, together with its French hosts at the great 
synagogue on the Eue de la Victoire. The sermon 
was delivered by Eabbi Voorsanger, the service read 
by Rabbi Levy of Paris ; and again the great throng 
of Americans in uniform and their French friends 
joined in the common worship of their faith and the 
common exaltation of their patriotism. 

In addition to the overseas commission and the 
men in the field, several of the prominent officers of 
the Jewish Welfare Board went to France at various 
times and took personal part in the work. The first 
was Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff, who spent the months 



JEWISH WELFAKE BOAKD IN THE A. E. F. 109 

of December 1918 and January 1919 in France as a 
member of the commission of eleven of the United 
War Work Organization, which had just completed 
its great financial drive. In that capacity Mr. Schiff 
was equally interested in all the welfare agencies; 
naturally, he gave the full benefit of his advice to 
the J. W. B. In February 1919 Colonel Harry 
Cutler, chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board, 
came to France. Although burdened with duties for 
other organizations as well, he accomplished 
wonders for the work of the J. W. B. during his 
four months in France. His enthusiasm and vigor 
showed at once, as in any matter he ever undertook. 
He traveled throughout the A. E. F., observed con- 
ditions for himself, and then accomplished two im- 
portant pieces of work. First he obtained an order 
from the General Headquarters releasing the J. W. 
B. from its former dependence on the Y. M. C. A. 
and allowing it to work directly in cooperation with 
the military authorities ; this was certainly advisable 
under post-armistice conditions, and many others 
felt with me that it would have been the preferable 
system at all times. Second, he persuaded Chaplain 
Elkan C. Voorsanger, then completing his second 
year overseas, to allow his division to return home 
without him, while he stayed on from April to 
September as Overseas Director of the J. W. B. 
Together with Chaplain Voorsanger, Colonel Cutler 
administered the J. W. B. during the period of 
growth, and then left him to carry it on successfully 
during the time of retrenchment, until finally he also 
returned home with the Paris Sta,ff, and the only 
representatives left in France were those working 
in cooperation with the Graves Registration Service. 



110 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FEANCE 

Another important worker for the J. W. B. was 
iDr. Cyrus Adler, vice-chairman of the national 
organization, who reached France in March, 1919 
as a representative of the American Jewish Com- 
mittee. On Colonel Cutler's return in May, Dr. 
Adler took over his duties for the Welfare Board, 
and worked with Chaplain Voorsanger until the end 
of his mission, in July 1919. 

One necessary part of the work of the Jewish Wel- 
fare Board, after all its efforts on behalf of the men 
in the service had been accomplished, was to care 
for the graves of those Jews jwho gave their all in 
the service of America. The Graves Eegistration 
Service, later called the Cemetarial Division of the 
War Department, had a great and necessary work. 
The Jewish Welfare Board obtained in February, 
1918 a War Department order that all graves of 
Jews should be marked with the Magen David, the 
double triangle. 

This order was confirmed by a response from 
General Pershing on July 29, 1918. Temporary 
Jewish headboards were supplied overseas, together 
with the temporary crosses, and whenever we knew 
definitely that a particular soldier had been a Jew 
they were used. Unfortunately, that information 
was not always available. Most units had no re- 
ligious census, certainly none was up to date in- 
cluding the replacements. The order for marking 
the identification tag with an additional letter — 
''P" for Protestant, ''C" for Catholic, and^'H" 
for Hebrew — was issued after most of us were over- 
seas, and hardly any of the tags had it; I know I 
never had the ''H" put on mine. Often a man 
would carry a prayerbook in his pocket, but if the 



JEWISH WELFAEE BOARD IN THE A. E. F. Ill 

bodies were searched by one detail and buried by 
another that did not help. I know that it took me 
three months to verify my list of Jewish dead in the 
27th Division, so that one can imagine the task for 
the entire A. E. F. 

In May, 1919, the J. W. B. undertook this duty of 
identifying the Jewish graves, so that the War De- 
partment could mark them all properly. They have 
thus identified 1,500 altogether and where a cross 
had already been put up the headboard was changed. 
In this connection, a peculiar situation arose through 
the efforts of the Red Cross to photograph all 
graves in France for the benefit of the families 
at home. Such graves as had not been identified 
as Jewish still had the cross, and some families had 
their religious sensibilities shocked by the photo- 
graphs. Hence the photographs in all such cases 
were detained until the changes had been carried 
out, and the Jewish Welfare Board had the graves 
photographed for the benefit of the families. Natu- 
rally, this work is being continued in the funerals 
of such soldiers as are being returned and in the care 
of such graves as shall remain permanently where 
our heroes fought and fell. 

The sad death of Colonel Cutler occurred in Eng- 
land during the summer of 1920, on a trip which 
he undertook in the interest of the Graves Eegistra- 
tion work, against the advice of his j)hysicians and 
solely through his profound interest in the cause. 
His life was a sacrifice to his duty, to the tremen- 
dous efforts he had made for the Jewish Welfare 
Board and the other great national movements of 
Jewry. He gave, as so many others gave, another 
sacrifice for Judaism and America. 



112 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FEANCE 

On the whole, the field workers of the Jewish Wel- 
fare Board made an enviable record in France. In 
this respect a minor organization had the advantage 
in being able to choose its representatives so much 
more carefully than in the enormous machine of the 
Y. M. C. A. The women workers were especially 
conspicuous for their steady, uncomplaining service. 
Their work was anything but romantic ; it was driv- 
ing, wearing labor. They tended canteen all day 
and danced almost every evening, a regime that 
was hard physically and exhausting mentally. Only 
those in the larger cities could enjoy the luxuries 
which are so commonplace in America — e,lectric 
lights, a bath tub, and the other conveniences of 
civilization. I have marveled to see them living 
for months in tiny French villages or in army camps, 
giving devoted service to the men in uniform, with- 
out distinction of rank or creed. 

Through these workers the Jewish Welfare Board 
was able to render the personal touch which was 
missing in much of the war work overseas. This 
applied especially to the Jewish man, who felt over- 
joyed to meet a Jewish girl from America, to at- 
tend a Seder, to write home on the J. W. B. letter- 
head. He had found a touch of home in a foreign 
land; his personal needs could be understood and 
satisfied so much more easily and directly now. But 
many men of many creeds found themselves at home 
in the J. W. B. huts. Men learned to know Jews, 
to respect Judaism in the army who had been igno- 
rant of both at home. They often attended a Jewish 
service, met a Jewish chaplain, or simply preferred 
the home-like atmosphere to that of other welfare 
organizations. For one thing, the J. W. B. was run 



JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. F. 113 

according to the tastes of the soldiers; there was 
no charge for anything, even a nominal one; there 
was no condescension and no dictation, none of the 
things which the soldiers hated. In the Le Mans 
area, which was typical, from 56 to 60 per cent of 
the men patronizing the J. W. B. building were non- 
Jews. This constituted a return for the thousands 
of Jews who patronized Y. M. C. A. and K. of C. 
huts, as well as our contribution to the morale of 
the forces. 

In some areas the Jewish Welfare Board was the 
most popular of all the welfare agencies ; in all, it 
was very popular with the men of all faiths. The 
high caHber of the women workers, the personal 
touch and home-like spirit of the work, gave it a 
hold on the affections of the men. For a long time 
the Jewish soldiers had felt neglected by their own, 
not knowing the obstacles which had to be overcome. 
Then they found their own huts, suddenly springing 
up in all the central points, crowded and popular 
with all the groups of soldiers in America's com- 
posite army. The Jewish soldier became proud and 
the Christian soldier became appreciative. The 
excellence of the work brought forgiveness for every- 
thing, even though the soldier was not used to listen- 
ing to reasons but formed his opinions quickly from 
the facts nearest at hand. The contribution through 
happiness and unity to the morale of the American 
Expeditionary Forces was one that did full justice 
to the eagerness and good will of the Jews of 
America. 



CHAPTBB VIII 

THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 

THE Jewish soldier demands no defense and 
needs no tribute. His deeds are written large 
in the history of every unit in the A. E. F.; 
they are preserved in the memory of his comrades 
of other races and other faiths. He was one with 
all American soldiers, for in the service men of 
every type and of every previous standpoint were 
much alike, under the same orders, holding the same 
ideals, with similar responses and similar accom- 
plishments. The Jew was an American soldier — 
that really covers the story. For historical pur- 
poses, however, a further statement of numbers, 
honors, personalities, may be worth while. The Jew 
was in the American army, as in all the allied armies, 
because he exists among the population of every 
land. The studies made in various lands show that 
over 900,000 Jews fought in the World War alto- 
getjier, of whom over 80,000 were killed in action or 
died of wounds. In the British forces casualties in- 
cluded the names of 8,600 Jews, and in the French 
forces, out of less than a hundred thousand Jewish 
population in the nation, 2,200 were killed in the 
service. These figures, picked practically at random 
from enormous masses of similar material, tend to 
show the participation of Jews in every army, just 
as they participate everjrwhere in the national life. 

114 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 115 

In the American forces the Jewish soldier ranked 
with the best ; he was an American soldier, and there 
is no higher praise than that. With all the pane- 
gyrics on the American doughboy during and since 
the war, not enough has been said or can ever be said 
about him. His good humor, his self sacrifice, his 
heroism, won the affection and the admiration of 
every one. His officers loved him; his enemies re- 
spected him; his allies regarded him with mingled 
enthusiasm and patronage. They loved his youth- 
ful dash and were amused at his youthful unsophis- 
tication; at the same time they were profoundly 
grateful for his forgetfulness of self when the time 
for action came. I have mentioned some of the 
incidents in my own experience, illustrating the 
magnificent courage and abandon of Americans at 
the front — the youngster who came to the aid post 
seriously gassed but proud that he had stayed on 
duty the longest of any man in his company; the 
weary boys on the brow of a hill, digging in for 
the fourth time in a day of advances and fighting; 
the little Italian who stood on the edge of the shell 
hole that his comrades might advance — ^but the 
number and the variety of them was endless. Bead- 
ing a list of the dry, official citations for decorations 
is like opening a mediaeval romance of the deeds of 
knightly heroes. There was Captain Ireland who 
came to our aid post to have his wounds dressed and 
then started out without waiting for the ambulance. 
''Where are you going. Captain?" I asked. ''Oh, 
back to the boys," was the answer, "I'm the only 
officer left in the battalion, and I don 't want to leave 
them." There was the chaplain's orderly, himself 
a student for the ministry, who voluntarily organ- 



116 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" FRANCE 

ized a stretcher party to bring in some wounded men 
out beyond the barbed wire. Every type of hero- 
ism and self sacrifice existed, all carried off with the 
good humored bravado of school boys at a football 
game. 

Among these heroes the Jewish soldiers were 
equal to the best, as their comrades and commanders 
were quick to recognize. A typical attitude toward 
them was that of a lieutenant colonel, telling me a 
story of his first battle, when we were on shipboard 
coming back home. "I was rather nervous about 
that first time under fire," he told me, "because I 
had a number of foreign boys in one company and 
didn't know how they Height behave. Among them 
was a little Jew who was medical man of the com- 
pany, carrying bandages instead of weapons, but 
going over the top with the others, a restless fellow, 
always breaking orders and getting into trouble of 
some kind or another. And when I came to that 
company on the front fine the first thing I saw was 
that little Jew jumping out of a shell hole and start- 
ing for the rear as fast as he could run. I pulled my 
revolver, ready to shoot him rather than have an ex- 
ample of cowardice set for the rest. But I was sur- 
prised to see him turn aside suddenly and jump into 
another shell hole, and when I went over there I 
found him hard ^at work bandaging up another 
wounded soldier. He was simply doing his duty 
under fire, absolutely without sign of fear as he 
tended the boys who were hurt. I was sorry I had 
misjudged him so badly and watched his work after 
that, with the result that I was later able to recom- 
mend him for a decoration. ' ' 

Ignorance, suspicion, ripening with knowledge 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 117 

into understanding and admiration — that was the 
usual course of events. I quote Colonel Whittlesey, 
commander of the famous ''Lost Battalion" of 
the 308th Infantry, a New York unit with^ a 
very large proportion of Jews: ''As to the Je^vish 
boys in the Battalion, I cannot recall many of 
them by name, but certain figures stand out 
simply because they are so unexpected. The ordi- 
nary run of soldiers, whether Jews, Irish, or Ameri- 
cans — the big, husky chaps who simply do what they 
are expected to do — naturally pass from our mem- 
ory. It is the odd figures who stick in your mind. 
There was one chap for example (Herschkovitz was 
his name) who seemed the worst possible material 
from which to make soldier-stuff. He was thick-set, 
stupid looking, extremely foreign, thoroughly East 
Side, and yet, one day when we were holding the 
bank of the Vesle, and it became necessary to send 
runners to communicate with our commands, Hers- 
chovitz was the only "man who volunteered for the 
job. It was a nasty physical job. It would have 
been a difficult thing if it had not been under fire, be- 
cause it meant cutting through under-brush, up hill 
and down hill. Under fire this became almost im- 
possible, and the boys knew it, so none of them cared 
for the job, but Herschkovitz mad© the trip four 
times that day. What was it?, Well, just plain 
pluck, that's all. There were a great many fellows 
of this type — East Siders of whom the regular army 
men expected nothing at all — ^but the 77th Division 
just seemed equal to anything . . . . " 

In the same unit was Private Abraham Kroto- 
shinsky, who was awarded the D. S. C. for bearing 
the message which informed the division of the exact 
location of the unit, and was instrumental in releas- 



118 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FEANCE 

ing them. Krotoshinsky was an immigrant boy, not 
yet a citizen, a barber by trade. His own words 
give the story simply enough: ''We began to be 
afraid the division had forgotten us or that they 
had given us up for dead. We had to get a mes- 
senger through. It meant almost certain death, 
we were all sure, because over a hundred and fifty 
men had gone away and never come back. But it 
had to be done. The morning of the fifth day they 
called for volunteers for courier. I volunteered and 
was accepted. I went because I thought I ought to. 
First of all I was lucky enough not to be wounded. 
Second, after five days of starving, I was stronger 
than many of my friends who were twice my size. 
You know a Jew finds strength to suffer. Third, 
because I would just as soon die trying to help the 
others as in the 'pocket' of hunger and thirst. 

"I got my orders and started. I had to run about 
thirty feet in plain view of the Grermans before I 
got into the forest. They saw me when I got up 
and fired everything they had at me. Then I had 
to crawl right through their lines. They were look- 
ing for me everywhere. I just moved along on my 
stomach, in the direction I was told, keeping my 
eyes open for them. ... It was almost six o'clock 
that night when I saw the American lines. All that 
day I had been crawling or running doubled up after 
five days and nights without food and practically 
nothing to drink. Then my real trouble began. 
I was coming from the direction of the German lines 
and my English is none too good. I was afraid they 
would shoot me for a Grerman before I could explain 
who I was. . . . Then the Captain asked me who I 
was. I told him I was from the Lost Battalion. 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 119 

Then he asked me whether I could lead him back to 
the battalion. I said, 'Yes.' They gave me a 
bite to eat and something to drink and after a little 
rest I started back again with the command. I 
will never forget the scene when the relief came. 
The men were like crazy with joy." 

In high position and in low the same kind of 
service came from the American Jew. This is the 
official citation of a Colonel, who is in civil life one of 
the prominent Jews of Chicago, Illinois: 

' ' Colonel Abel Davis, 132nd Infantry. For extra- 
ordinary heroism in action near Consenvoye, France, 
October 9, 1918. Upon reaching its objective, after 
a difficult advance, involving two changes of direc- 
tions. Colonel Davis's regiment was subjected to a 
determined enemy counterattack. Disregarding the 
heavy shell and machine-gun fire, Colonel Davis per- 
sonally assumed command and by his fearless leader- 
ship and courage the enemy was driven back." 

Judge Eobert S. Marx of Cincinnati, Ohio, is 
now national president of the Disabled Veterans of 
the World War and a member of the national com- 
mittee on hospitalization and vocational education 
of the American Legion. But in 1917 and '18 he 
was Captain Marx of the 90th Division, operations 
officer of his regiment during the St. Mihiel and Ar- 
gonne offensives, and reported dead on the day be- 
fore the armistice, when he was struck on the head 
and wounded severely. And on the other extreme, I 
notice the case of First Sergeant Sam Dreben of 
the 141st Infantry, a soldier of fortune in many 
revolutions and a member of the Regular Army in 
the Philippines several years ago. Discovering a 
party of G-ermans coming to the support of a dan- 



120 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

gerous machine-gmi nest, Sergeant Dreben with 
thirty men charged the German position, killed forty 
of the enemy, took several prisoners, and captured 
five machine guns, returning to his own lines without 
losing a man. For this daring and important act 
he was awarded the D. S. C. 

Of the various types of distinction emphasized 
during the war, all were as true of Jews as of any 
other group. Numerous cases exist where four or 
more members of a single family were in the service. 
There was the Pleshner family, of Springfield, 
Mass., from which four sons of an immigrant father 
and mother entered the service, the oldest of them 
only twenty-three. The oldest of these boys lost an 
arm and an eye while carrying ammunition through a 
barrage, but exclaimed later in the hospital: ''I'm 
the luckiest Jew in the army. Any other man in 
any place would have been killed." 

The New York Herald during the war described 
an indefatigable Eed Cross worker, Mrs. Louis 
Rosenberg of North Bergen, N. J. This old Jewish 
mother had six sons in the service ; the two oldest, 
each the father of two children, when summoned for 
the draft refused to claim exemption, and having 
invested their savings in two small notion stores, 
they left their wives in charge of them and accepted 
the call to military service. Mrs. Liba Goldstein, 
of Cambridge Springs, Pa., a woman of eighty-four, 
bom in Russia, had twenty grandsons in the allied 
armies, ten as officers in the British army, eight in 
the American forces, and two with the Jewish Legion 
in Palestine. And so one might bring out one ex- 
ample after another, if one desired, all showing the 
eagerness of loyal Jews to serve their country. 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 121 

The Office of Jewish War Eecords of the American 
Jewish Committee has made a remarkably interest- 
ing preliminary study of the number of Jews in the 
American forces. The office possesses 150,000 in- 
dividual records, gathered by extensive cooperation 
with national and local Jewish organizations. The 
success of certain local efforts at intensive cover- 
ing of the field indicate that the total number of 
American Je^ws in service during the 'war may 
amount to as much as 200,000. Of these about 
40,000 came from New York City, 8,000 from Phila- 
delphia and 5,000 from Chicago. Instead of their 
quota of three per cent., according to the proportion 
of Jews throughout the nation, the Jews in service 
actually constituted fully four per cent, of the men 
in the army and navy. The causes of this excess 
are not easy to establish. The draft may have been 
more fully enforced in cities than in many rural dis- 
tricts, and the bulk of the Jews are city dwellers. 
The proportion of young men among the various 
groups of our population would apply only if the 
Jews have more than their quota of young men, and 
we possess no facts to confirm that. But certainly 
the number of volunteers was an element in causing 
this large number of Jews in the service. The rec- 
ords show 40,000 volunteers among the Jewish men, 
practically one-fourth of the total Jewish contingent 
and a far higher record than that of the army as 
a whole. 

In certain outstanding cases this record is even 
more conspicuous. The little colony of immigrant 
Jewish farmers at Woodbine, N. J., not over three 
hundred families altogether, contributed forty-three 
men to the service, of whom seventeen men, or forty 



122 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

per cent., were volunteers. Of the students at the 
rabbinical seminaries, who were all exempt by law, 
a conspicuously large number volunteered for ser- 
vice in the line, in addition to the chaplains among 
the graduates and the large number of both students 
and graduates who acted as representatives of the 
Jewish Welfare Board, lecturers in the training 
camps and similar capacities. In fact, the semi- 
naries were almost empty for a year. Eleven stu- 
dents of the Hebrew Union College and four of the 
Jewish Theological Seminary waived exemption for 
regular service in the army and navy, including a 
number of men with very exceptional records. 
Jacob Marcus, now Rabbi and Instructor at the He- 
brew Union College, volunteered in the Ohio Na- 
tional Guard and won his lieutenancy by brilliant 
work in the ranks. Three of the students there en- 
tered the Marine Corps during the first weeks of the 
war and served for over two years in that branch. 
One, Michael Aaronson, serving in the 31st Division 
overseas, was completely blinded while helping a 
wounded comrade in No Man's Land; now he is 
finishing his studies at the College with the same 
spirit which he showed in entering the service and in 
his work as a soldier. 

The Jewish boys went into the army to fight. 
That appears in their proportion in the combatant 
branches of the American Expeditionary Forces. 
"While these branches — Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry, 
Engineers, and Signal-Aviation — constituted 60 per 
cent, of the total, among the 114,000 records 
of Jewish soldiers in the hands of the War Records 
Office the distribution among these combatant 
branches is fully 75 per cent. The Infantry 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIEB 123 

constituted 26.6 per cent, of the entire army, while 
among the Jewish records it constituted 48 per cent. 
Artillery was 14 per cent, of the United States army, 
8 per cent, of the Jewish total. In cavalry the rate 
for the entire army was 2 per cent., for the Jews only 
1.3 per cent. The engineer corps contributed 11 per 
cent, of the army strength, and but 3 per cent, among 
the Jewish records. The signal and aviation corps 
represented 7 per cent, of the United States total, 
and 15 per cent, of the Jewish total. The medical 
corps was 8 per cent, of the army total, 9 per cent, of 
the Jewish total. Ordnance was 1.7 per cent, of the 
army total, and 1.5 of the Jewish total. The quar- 
termaster corps was 6.2 per cent, of the army total 
and 5.9 per cent, of the Jewish total. 

The Army, Navy and Marine Corps altogether had 
nearly 10,000 Jews as commissioned officers, and a 
really tremendous number of non-commissioned of- 
ficers. The Army records show more than a hun- 
dred colonels and lieutenant colonels of Jewish faith, 
including such distinguished officers as Colonel Abel 
Davis, whom I have already mentioned in connection 
with his D. S. C. for heroism displayed on October 9, 
1918; Colonel Nathan Horowitz, of Boston, Mass. 
who spent 27 months in France in the heavy artil- 
lery; Colonel Samuel Frankenberger, of Charleston, 
W. Va., who commanded the 78th Field Artillery; 
Colonel Samuel J. Kopetzky, Medical Corps, of New 
York City, who commanded Sanitary Train 396, in 
the A. E. F. ; and Colonel Max Robert Wainer, Quar- 
termaster Corps, formerly of Delaware City, Del., 
who was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal 
and appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by 
the French government. These honors were but 



124 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

the climax to a military career that began with en- 
listment as a private in 1905, and promotion to the 
rank of Second Lieutenant in 1912. In the war 
every one of the four battles in which he took part 
was the ocasion of a further promotion, so that 
he concluded the war as a Colonel. I have already 
mentioned Colonel Wainer in another connection, 
as the first active Jewish worker at Tours; as a 
matter of fact, he organized a Seder in his own unit 
in 1918, where 500 men celebrated the Passover at 
the same time that Chaplain Voorsanger was hold- 
ing his Seder at St. Nazaire, and when practically 
no other Jewish work was being conducted in the 
entire overseas forces. 

There were over 500 majors, 1,500 captains, and 
more than 6,000 lieutenants in the American army, 
with a full share of each in the A. E. F. Over 900 
Jews were officers in the navy, the most conspicuous 
of them being Rear Admiral Joseph Strauss, in com- 
mand of the mine laying work in the North Sea dur- 
ing the war. In addition there were one captain, 
five commanders and twelve lieutenant commanders. 
The marine corps included among its personnel over 
a hundred Jews as officers, among them three 
majors, one colonel, and Brigadier-General Charles 
Henry Laucheimer of Baltimore, Md., who died in 
January 1920. 

The latest estimates of casualties run from 13,000 
to 14,000, including about 2,800 who died in the 
service of America. This can be inferred easily 
from the branches of the service in which our Jewish 
boys were found, as well as from the number of 
honors they received. After all, for every brave 
man whose acts were noted and rewarded, many 
others just as heroic fought and bled unseen. 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 125 

The number of Jews decorated for conspicuous 
courage is attested, not only by the Office of War 
Eecords, but also by the Jewish Valor Legion, an 
organization of American Jews who received such 
awards during the World War. Fully 1,100 cita- 
tions for valor are on record. Of these, 723 were 
conferred by the American command, 287 by the 
French, 33 by the British, and 46 by other allied 
commands. The Distinguished Service Cross is 
worn by 150 American Jews, the French Medaille 
Militaire by four, and the Croix de Guerre by 174. 
The Congressional Medal of Honor, the rarest award 
in the American or any other service, which was 
conferred on only 78 men in the entire service, 
is worn by three American Jews, one of them killed 
in the act for which he was rewarded. I add their 
official citations, not only for their personal interest, 
but as an added tribute to these three heroes, a 
glory both to Jewry and to America. 

'' Sydney Gr. Gumpertz, first sergeant, Company 
E, 132nd Infantry. Congressional Medal of Honor 
for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above 
and beyond the call of duty in action with the 
enemy in the Bois de Forges, France, September 
26, 1918. When the advancing line was held up by 
machine-gun fire, Sergeant Gumpertz left the pla- 
toon of which he was in command and started with 
two other soldiers through a heavy barrage toward 
the machine-gun nest. His two companions soon 
became casualties from a bursting shell, but Ser- 
geant Gumpertz "continued on alone in the face of 
direct fire from the machine-gun, jumped into the 
nest and silenced the gun, capturing nine of the 
crew. Awarded January 22, 1919. ' ' 



126 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FKANCE 

*' First Sergeant Benjamin Kaufman, Company 
K, 308th Infantry, Congressional Medal of Honor 
for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and 
beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy in 
the Forest of Argonne, France, October 4, 1918. 
Sergeant Kaufman took out a patrol for the purpose 
of attacking an enemy machine-gun which had 
checked the advance of his company. Before reach- 
ing the gun he became separated from his patrol, 
and a machine-gun bullet shattered his right arm. 
Without hesitation he advanced on the gun alone, 
throwing gernades with his left hand and charging 
with an empty pis.tol, taking one prisoner and 
scattering the crew, bringing the gun and prisoner 
back to the first aid station. Awarded April 8, 
1919." 

''Sergeant William Sawelson, deceased, Com- 
pany M, 312th Infantry, Congressional Medal of 
Honor awarded for conspicuous gallantry and in- 
trepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action 
with the enemy at G-randpre, France, October 26, 
1918. Hearing a wounded man in a shell-hole some 
distance away calling for water, Sergeant Sawelson 
upon his own initiative left shelter and crawled 
through heavy machine-gun fire to where the man 
lay, giving him what water he had in his own canteen. 
He then went back to his own shell-hole, obtained 
more water and was returning to the wounded man, 
when he was killed by a machine-gun bullet. Post- 
humously awarded January 10, 1919. ' ' 

The 27th Division, in which I served, was fairly 
typical in this respect, as it was a National Guard 
unit, composed of volunteers from both the New 
York metropolitan district and ''up-state." There 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIEK 127 

were about a thousand Jews in the entire division 
and seven hundred of them were in the infantry, 
machine-gun battalions and engineers, which served 
together. I did not find a company without from 
two to thirty Jewish soldiers, and seldom without 
at least one Jew among the non-commissioned offi- 
cers. I remember the time I motored over to one 
battalion to organize a Jewish service and inquired 
for a ''Jewish non-com" to take charge of getting 
the boys together. I was told that three top ser- 
geants out of the four companies were named Levi, 
Cohen and Pesalovsky, and that I could take my 
choice. The same thing occurred time and again 
when I visited other divisions. For example, Ser- 
geant Major Wayne of the 320th Infantry prepared 
the Passover passes for the 40 Jews of his regiment, 
then in the Le Mans area, but missed the Seder him- 
self, staying at his post of duty to prepare the regi- 
mental sailing list. 

The 27th Division had several Jews among the 
officers of high rank — ^Lieutenant Colonel H. S. 
Sternberger, the division quartermaster ; Lieutenant 
Colonel Morris Liebman, killed in action in Flanders ; 
Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Emanuel Gold- 
stein, Medical Corps, who was awarded the D. S. 0. 
by the British command, one of four such decora- 
tions given to officers of our division. Captain 
Simpson of the 106th Field Artillery, Lieutenant 
King of the office of the division chief of staff, 2nd 
Lieutenant Samuel A. Brown of the 108th Infantry, 
2nd Lieutenant Sternberger of the Interpreters' 
Corps and 2nd Lieutenant Florsheim of the division 
quartermaster's office were among the officers of 
Jewish origin. In addition, there were a few, such 



128 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

as Sergeant Schiff of the 102iid Engineers and 
Sergeant Struck of division headquarters, who were 
recommended for commissions for their excellent 
service but were disappointed on account of the 
stoppage of all promotions after the armistice. 

I mentioned in connection with my own work the 
list of sixty-five Jews of the 27th who were killed 
in action or died in hospitals in France, their full 
proportion of the nearly 2,000 dead of the division. 
The first man in the 27th who was killed in action 
was a Jew, Private Eobert Friedman of the 102nd 
Engineers. Most of our losses, like those of the 
division as a whole, were incurred in the terrific 
fighting at the Hindenburg Line, and most of our 
men were buried there in the great divisional ceme- 
teries of Bony and Guillemont Farm, right at the 
furthest point which they reached alive. The 
cemetery of Bony is to be one of the permanent 
American cemeteries in France, and I can still see 
the Magen Davids standing here and there among 
the rows of crosses, where I had them placed. 

The Jews of the 27th won their full share of 
{decorations, too. Nine of them wear the Distin- 
guished Service Cross conferred by the American 
command; one, the British honor of the Distin- 
guished Service Order; one, the British Distin- 
guished Conduct Medal; seven, the British Military 
Medal; one, the French Croix de Guerre with star; 
and one, the Belgian Order of the Crown. Elimina- 
ting cases where one man received several such hon- 
ors, fifteen Jews of this one division alone were 
decorated for unusual courage and initiative in bat- 
tle. I add the official citations of four of these men 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 129 

as further examples of the heroism of the Jewish 
soldiers in the American forces. 

"Major Emanuel Goldstein, Medical Corps, 102nd 
Engineers, D. S. 0., Belgian Order of the Crown. 
On Sept. 29, 1918, in the vicinity of Lompire and 
Guillemont Farm near Ronssoy, France, he re- 
mained in the most exposed positions under heavy 
shell fire and machine-gun fire, to render first aid to 
several wounded men, displaying exceptional 
bravery and courage, and setting a fine example of 
devotion to duty to all ranks." 

"Second Lieutenant Samuel A. Brown Jr., 108th 
Infantry. D. S. C. awarded for extraordinary hero- 
ism in action near Ronssoy, France, Sept. 29, 1918. 
Advancing with his platoon through heavy fog and 
dense smoke and in the face of terrific fire which in- 
flicted heavy casualties on his forces. Lieutenant 
Brown reached the wire in front of the main Hinden- 
burg Line, and, after reconnoitering for gaps, as- 
saulted the position and effected a foothold. Hav- 
ing been reenforced by another platoon, he organ- 
ized a small force, and by bombing and trench 
fighting captured over a hundred prisoners. Re- 
peated attacks throughout the day were repelled 
by his small force. He also succeeded in taking 
four field pieces, a large number of machine guns, 
anti-tank rifles, and other military property, at the 
same time keeping in subjection the prisoners he 
had taken." 

"Corporal Abel J. Levine, Company A, 107th 
Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near 
Bony, France, Sept. 29, 1918. After his platoon 
had suffered heavy casualties and all the sergeants 



130 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

had been wounded, Corporal Levine collected the re- 
maining effectives in his own and other units, formed 
a platoon and continued the advance. "When his 
rifle was rendered useless he killed several of the 
enemy with his pistol. He was wounded shortly 
afterward, but he refused assistance until his men 
had been cared for and evacuated." Corporal 
Levine received the D. S. C. and the British D. C. M. 

"Private Morris Silverberg, Company G, 108th 
Infantry. For extraordinary heroism in action near 
Ronssoy, France, Sept. 29, 1918. Private Silver- 
berg, a stretcher bearer, displayed extreme courage 
by repeatedly leaving shelter and advancing over 
an area swept by machine-gun and shell fire to 
rescue wounded comrades. Hearing that his com- 
pany conunander had been wounded, he voluntarily 
went forward alone, and upon finding that his officer 
had been killed, brought back his body." Private 
Silverberg received both the D. S. C. and the Brit- 
ish M. M. 

One more point must be noted with regard to 
these Jewish boys who served America so bravely 
and so effectively. Many of them showed in their 
sacrifices the true Jewish spirit of Kiddush ha-Shem, 
sanctification of the name of God. Time and again 
have I heard men give such a turn to their speech, 
as when I asked a boy from one of our machine gun 
battalions why he had led a group of volunteers in 
bringing from an exposed position some wounded 
men of another regiment, an act in which the only 
other Jew in the company had been killed and for 
which my friend was later decorated. ''Well, chap- 
lain," he answered me, ''there were only two Jewish 
boys in the company and we'd been kidded about it 



THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 131 

a little. "We just wanted to show those fellows 
what a Jew could do." Dr. Enelow tells a similar 
story of a boy dying in a hospital, who gave the 
rabbi a last message to his parents, saying: '^Tell 
them I did my duty as a soldier and brought honor 
to the Jewish name." 

Once again, in the American forces during the 
World War, the Jew has proved himself a devoted 
patriot and a heroic soldier, and this time he has 
done so in broad daylight, before the eyes of all the 
world. 



CHAPTER IX 

JEW AND CHKISTIAN" AT THE FRONT 

TO those of US who served with the United 
States Army overseas, religious unity, co- 
operation between denominations, is more 
than a far-off ideal. We know under what circum- 
stances and to what extent it is feasible, and just 
how it deepens and broadens the religious spirit 
in both chaplain and soldier. We have passed be- 
yond the mutual tolerance of the older hberalism 
to the mutual helpfulness of the newer devoutness. 
Our common ground is no longer the irreducible 
minimum of doctrines which we share; it is the 
practical maximum of service which we can render 
together. I was in a critical ^position to experience 
this as the only Jewish chaplain in the Twenty- 
Seventh Division; my duty was to minister to the 
men of the Jewish faith throughout the various units 
of our division, with the friendly cooperation of the 
twenty other chaplains of various faiths. And I 
was able to do my work among the Jews, and to a 
certain extent among the Christians also, simply 
because these Protestant and Catholic chaplains 
were equally friendly and helpful to me and my 
scattered flock. Not by mutual tolerance but by 
mutual helpfulness we were able to serve together 
the thousands of soldiers who needed us all. 

It is a commonplace that as men grow acquainted 

132 



JEW AND CHRISTIAN AT THE FEONT 133 

they naturally learn to respect and to like one an- 
other. When a Jew from the East Side of New 
York, who had never known any Christian well ex- 
cept the corner pohceman, and a Kentucky moun- 
taineer, who had been reared with the idea that 
Jews have horns, were put into the same squad both 
of them were bound to be broadened by it. And, 
provided both of them were normal, average boys, 
as they were likely to be, they probably became 
''buddies" to the great advantage of both of them. 
Often such associations would bring about the sort 
of a friendship which death itself could not break. 

One of the Jewish chaplains tells an incident of 
the first night he spent in the training camp at 
Camp Taylor, Ky. The candidate for chaplain in 
the cot next to his was a lanky backwoods preacher 
from one of the southern States. The two met, 
introduced themselves by name and denomination, 
and then prepared to "turn in" for the night. The 
rabbi noticed that his ministerial neighbor sat about, 
hesitated, and played for time generally, even 
though it was fully time to turn out the lights. 
Finally the matter became so obvious that he could 
not resist inquiring the reason for this delay. The 
answer came, a bit embarrassed but certainly frank 
enough : "I don't want to go to bed till I see how a 
Jew says his prayers." 

On the whole, considering the many individual 
differences in an army of two million men, religious 
prejudice was not engendered by the army; some 
persisted in spite of it, and much was lessened by 
the comradeship and enforced intimacy of army 
life. In most commands prejudice against the Jew 
was a very small item indeed. It was so rare as to 



134 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

be almost non-existent in places of responsibility. 
It was often overcome by the acid test of battle 
when men appeared in their true colors and won 
respect for themselves alone. It was occasionally 
the fault of the man himself, who turned a personal 
matter into an accusation of anti-Semitism, and 
sometimes without cause. One Jewish corporal 
complained to me of discrimination on the part of 
his commanding officer, who had recommended his 
reduction to the ranks. On investigation, I found 
that the officer might have been unfair in his judg- 
ment, but had recommended the same for two non- 
Jews at the same time ; the case may therefore have 
been one of personal dislike but was certainly not 
a matter of religious prejudice. When I found 
authentic cases of discrimination, they were usually 
in the case of some ignorant non-commissioned offi- 
cer, who presumed on his scanty authority at the 
expense of some Jewish private. Or it might be 
a sort of hazing, when a group of "rough necks" 
selected a foreigner with a small command of Eng- 
lish as the butt of their jokes. When men complain 
of prejudice against Jews in the army, it usually 
means that they met there a group of prejudiced 
people with whom they would not have come into 
contact in civil life. The tendency of the American 
army during the World War was definitely against 
prejudice of any kind; prejudice made against ef- 
ficiency, and the higher one went the more difficult 
it became to find any traces of it. 

In the army and especially in overseas service 
men went naturally to the nearest chaplain or Avel- 
fare organization for any benefit except worship, 
and sometimes for that also. From my first re- 



JEW AND CHEISTIAN AT THE FRONT 135 

ligious service in a hospital with the crowd of non- 
Jews and sprinkling of Jews in the Eed Cross room, 
I found that the men went to the entertainment hut 
for whatever it might offer. Every large service 
afterward, especially if held in a convenient place, 
included a proportion of non-Jews, and invariably 
they were both respectful and interested. 

The burial work of the Twenty-Seventh Division 
at St. Souplet was the climax of cooperation among 
chaplains, where the five of us represented five dif- 
ferent churches. Our service was a three-fold one, 
as was the later one held at the larger cemeteries 
at Bony and Guillemont Farm. I have already re- 
ferred to the meetings held by the chaplains of our 
division to discuss our common work and arrange to 
do that work most effectively together. My very 
last duty in France was to read the burial service 
over four Christian sailors drowned outside Brest 
harbor. 

Such incidents as these were not exceptional at 
the front or among men who have been at the front 
and have learned its lesson; I give them especially 
because they are typical. The men who were under 
fire together grew to overlook differences as barriers 
between man and man. They knew the many times 
that their lives depended on the courage and loyalty 
of the next man in the line — be he rich or poor, 
learned or ignorant, pious or infidel, virtuous or 
wicked. They grew to respect men for themselves, 
to serve them for themselves alone. The men used 
any stationery that came to hand, writing home in- 
differently on paper labeled Y. M. C. A. or K. of C, 
or Salvation Army, or Eed Cross, or Jewish Wel- 
fare Board ; they attended a picture show or boxing 



136 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

match under any auspices and were willing to help 
at any of the huts that served them. In the same 
way the welfare workers and chaplains overlooked 
one distinction after another, at the end serving 
all alike and regarding their status as soldiers alone. 
Once when I dropped into a strange camp two boys 
whom I had never seen crowded through the press 
of men in the Y. M. C. A. hut; they had seen the 
insignia of the 27th, and being fresh from hospital, 
appealed to me to help them back to the division 
that they might return home with their own units. 
I was never surprised when non-Jews came to me 
for advice in ordinary cases, but I have had such ex- 
treme instances as a Jew and non-Jew coming 
together, to ask advice in a case where both felt 
they had been discriminated against by their com- 
manding officer. In hospital work, in front line 
service, even in the ordinary routine of the rest 
area, we came closer to one another than ever in 
civil life. 

As I said above, the logical climax of friendly 
cooperation comes when ministers of different faiths 
assist each other in their own work. I shall never 
forget a day in that busy October at the front when 
I met a Baptist chaplain belonging to our division. 
** Hello," he said, ''I've just come to headquarters 
here to look for you and a priest." ''All right, 
what can I do for you?" "Well," was his reply, 
"our battalion goes into the line tonight, and I 
wanted the Jewish and Catholic boys to have their 
services, too. If you can come over at four o'clock, 
I'll have the priest come at six." And so I came 
there at four, to find the fifteen Jewish soldiers 
grouped about a large tree near the battalion head- 



JEW AND CHRISTIAN AT THE FEONT 137 

quarters; the chaplain had notified them all. And, 
as the barn was both dirty and crowded, we held 
our little service under the tree, even though the 
rain began in the middle of it. Two of those boys 
did not come back three days later, and one was 
cited for heroism, so that I have often remembered 
the immeasurable service which the cooperation of 
that chaplain meant for his men. 

On a minor scale such things took place constantly. 
One day, going to a distant battalion in a rest area, 
I not only went to the Y. M. C. A. man, who ar- 
ranged for my services in the school-house, and to 
a Jewish corporal, who passed the word around to 
the men of my faith, but I arranged also that the 
''Y" man should conduct the Protestant service 
the following Sunday, and that the Catholic chaplain 
on coming should find arrangements made for his 
confessions and mass. A classic incident of the 
war is the story of Chief Rabbi Bloch, of Lyons, a 
chaplain in the French army, who met his death be- 
fore Verdun in the early days of the war while 
holding a cross before a dying Catholic lad. The 
incident was related by the Catholic chaplain of the 
regiment, who saw it from a little distance. But 
by the time the gigantic struggle was over such in- 
cidents had become almost matters of everyday. I, 
for one, have read psalms at the bedside of dying 
Protestant soldiers. I have held the cross before a 
dying Catholic. I have recited the traditional con- 
fession with the dying Jew. We were all one in a 
very real sense. 

A Christian chaplain preached the sermon on the 
second day of my Jewish New Year service in 
Nevers. Similarly, I was a guest, with the other 



138 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FRANCE 

memlDers of the divisional staff, at the splendid 
midnight mass arranged by Father Kelley in the 
little village church of Montf ort. For the first time 
in its history, the church was electrically lighted by 
our signal corps ; the villagers and the soldiers were 
out in force; colonels assisted as acolytes; and the 
brilliant red and gold of the vestments, with the 
pink satin and white lace of the little choir boys, 
stood out brilliantly from the dark garments of the 
French and the olive drab of the Americans. Father 
Kelley delivered a sermon of profound inspiration, 
as well as a brief address in French to the villagers, 
whose guests we were. The staff were seated in 
a little chapel, at one side of the altar. The next 
day my orderly overheard two of the soldiers argu- 
ing about me. One insisted: "I did see the rabbi 
there right on the platform." ''You didn%" said 
the other, ''even if this is the army, they wouldn't 
let him on the platform at a Catholic mass." It 
reminded me of the incident in Paris when I had 
visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame, accompanied 
by my chauffeur, a Catholic boy, and I had given 
him a lecture on the architecture and symbolism of 
that splendid structure. It was only afterward that 
the humor of the situation struck me — a rabbi ex- 
plaining a cathedral to a devoted Catholic. 

Every chaplain with whom I have compared notes 
has told me of similar experiences. Chaplain Elkan 
C Voorsanger, for example, at the time when he 
conducted the first official Jewish service overseas 
at Passover 1918, received four other invitations 
in various sections of France both from army of- 
ficials and Y. M. C. A. secretaries. At one point 
the Young Men's Christian Association even offered 



JEW AND CHRISTIAN" AT THE FEONT 139 

to pay all his expenses if his commanding officer 
would release him for the necessary time. I have 
■mentioned that Rabbi Voorsanger had no regular 
services in the 77th Division during the fall holy- 
days of 1918, due to the mihtary situation. There 
was one exception to this, however, a hasty service 
arranged at one of the brief stops during the march 
by Father Dunne of the 306th Infantry, and that 
service arranged by a priest was conducted by the 
rabbi in a ruined Catholic church. Chaplain Voor- 
sanger is full of praise for the thirty chaplains of 
various religions who worked under him when he 
was Senior Chaplain of the 77th. Their enthusiastic 
support as subordinates was fully equal to their 
hearty cooperation as equals. 

Peculiarly enough, the Christian Science chaplain 
in our division was the only one who found it diffi- 
cult to become adjusted with the rest. This could 
hardly have been personal, as he was generally re- 
spected. It may have been due in part to the general 
suspicion of some for the ministers of a new faith 
which had lured away a few of their adherents. 
But it seemed due chiefly to the ideas and the method 
he represented. He was handicapped for the neces- 
sary work of caring for the sick and wounded by 
a unique attitude toward physical suffering, dif- 
ferent from the rest of us and different from that of 
most of the soldiers themselves. As a consequence 
he could serve most of them only as a layman might. 
Certainly he could give no religious treatment of 
disease, as the medical department was supreme in 
its own field. In addition, he could conduct general 
services only mth difficulty. To the rest of us a 
service meant the same thing, — a psalm, a prayer, a 



140 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

talk, perhaps a song or two. But the Christian 
Scientist could not give a prayer. Prevented from 
using his ritual by the fact that the service was to 
be non-sectarian, he had not the power of personal 
prayer to fall back upon. He was not a minister in 
the same sense as the rest of us, and the army had 
no proper place for either a healer or a reader. 

With this single exception, I feel certain that 
every chaplain in France had the same sort of ex- 
perience. When I first arrived in France I was one 
of thirty-five chaplains assembled at the chaplains' 
headquarters for instruction and assignment. Our 
evening service was conducted in front of the quaint, 
angular chateau on a level lawn surrounded by 
straight rows of poplars. One evening Chaplain 
Paul Moody, of the Senior Chaplain's office, gave 
us an inspirational appeal derived from his own 
experience and his observation of so many success- 
ful chaplains at the front. Afterward, informally, 
a Catholic told us briefly what we should do in case 
we found a dying Catholic in the hospital or on the 
field, with no priest at hand. Then I was asked 
how best the others might minister to a Jewish 
soldier in extremity. I repeated to them the old 
Hebrew confession of faith; Shema Yisroel adonoi 
elohenu adonoi echod, ''Hear Israel, the Lord is 
our Grod, the Lord is One. ' ' I told them to lead the 
boy in reciting it, or if necessary just to say it for 
him, and the next morning when I brought down 
copies of the words for them all I was deeply touched 
by their eagerness to know them. These men did 
not go out to convert others to their own view of 
truth and life ; they were ready to serve pious souls 
and to bring God's presence near to all. Christian 



JEW AND CHRISTIAN AT THE FRONT 141 

ministers were eager to help Jews to be better Jews ; 
rabbis were glad to help Christians to be better 
Christians. We learned amid the danger and the 
bitterness to serve God and man, not in opposition 
and not even in toleration, but in true helpfulness 
toward one another. I doubt whether these men, 
once so willing to serve men of all creeds at the 
risk of their lives, are foremost in the ranks of 
Jewish conversionists to-day. 

Much of this spirit of genuine religion and of 
equal regard for all religions was due to the example 
and personal influence of the Senior Chaplain of the 
American Expeditionary Forces, Bishop Charles 
H. Brent, now the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of 
the Diocese of Western New York. Bishop Brent 
utilized his great ability, his high spirituality and 
his personal acquaintance with the Commander-in- 
Chief all for the welfare of the men in the service. 
Assiduous in his personal devotions, definite in his 
personal preaching, when he turned to his duties as 
Senior Chaplain he simply forgot his own affiliations 
in the interest of all religions ahke. Catholic and 
Protestant had equal faith in the impartiality and 
justice of his acts. He was especially careful in 
behalf of the Jewish men because he knew that they 
were a minority and might otherwise be neglected. 
The official orders and the detailed arrangements 
for the various holydays were a serious considera- 
tion with him. His spirit animated his entire staff. 
Chaplain Voorsanger felt it from the outset. Chap- 
lain Paul D. Moody, Bishop Brent's assistant in 
the chaplains' office at General Headquarters, was 
animated by it equally with his chief. Chaplain 
Moody, a son of the great evangelist and now in one 



142 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

of the important Presbyterian cliurclies in New 
York City, was fond of telling how the various com- 
manding officers would often greet him as ' ' Father ' ' 
or ''Bishop." 

It is hardly surprising that such cooperation 
strengthened men in loyalty to their own faith. As 
the soldiers saw the military rank of all the chap- 
lains and their influence everywhere in the interests 
of the men, as they saw men of other faiths coming 
to their chaplain because of his loved personality 
or his high standing, as they saw the official bulle- 
tins announcing religious services of different 
faiths at different hours but under the same aus- 
pices, they grew to respect themselves and their 
own faith a little more. A young man is likely to 
be defiant or apologetic about being religious unless 
he sees religion, including his religion, respected by 
his comrades and his commanding officers. There- 
fore this mutual service, instead of weakening the 
religious consciousness of the various groups, rather 
strengthened it. Men grew to respect themselves 
more as they respected others more; they became 
stronger in their own faith as they became more 
understanding of others. The five chaplains at the 
burial detail did not give up their own ideas, but 
they did learn more about the others' faiths, and 
they certainly learned to respect each other pro- 
foundly as workers, as ministers and as men. Thus 
our mutual friendship and our mutual help became 
the foundation of all our efforts for the men, re- 
ligious, personal and military. We did our work 
together as parts of one church, the United States 
Army. 

This situation was brought out in strong relief 



JEW AND CHRISTIAN" AT THE EEONT 143 

for me when I met in Le Mans a young French 
priest, who had served as chaplain in an army hos- 
pital through most of the war. He was overcome 
with astonishment when I told him that, while the 
majority of the men in our army were Protestant, 
the Senior Chaplain of the area at that time was a 
Catholic priest. I had to go into considerable de- 
tail, explaining that in some organizations the head 
was a Protestant, and in one division a Jew. Fi- 
nally he grasped it, with the remark, ''C'est la 
liberie." As a Frenchman it was hard for him to 
understand the kind of religious liberty which means 
cooperation and friendship. In France religious 
liberty is based on hostility and intolerance of re- 
ligion. Religious liberty there means liberty for 
the irreligious and consequent limitation of the 
hberty of the rehgious. On the other hand, religion 
there has meant historically, the domination of one 
religion and the curtailment of liberty. It is a 
peculiar view, which is paralleled among French 
Jewry also. Active and interested Jews have little 
interest in modernism, even in modern methods of 
religious education ; French Jews who are interested 
in the world to-day have little interest in Judaism. 
We who served together in the United States 
Army have a different ideal. "We think of a re- 
ligion which gives equal freedom to all other types 
of piety, which works equally with men of every 
faith in the double cause of country and morality, 
which does not give up its own high faith but sees 
equally the common weal of all humanity, to be 
served by men of many faiths. We have fixed our 
gaze upon religion in action, and have found that 
the things which divide us are chiefly matters of 



IM A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

theory, which do not impede our working effectively 
together. It needs but the same enthusiasm for the 
constant and increasing welfare of all God's crea- 
tures to carry unity in action of all religious liberals 
into the general life of America, to give us not 
merely religious toleration, but religious helpful- 
ness. 



CHAPTER X 

THE EELIGIOI^ OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER 

MUCH has been written of the soldier's re- 
ligion, most of it consisting of theoretical 
treatises of how the soldier ought to feel 
and act, written by highly philosophic gentlemen in 
their studies at home or by journalistic travelers 
who had taken a hurried trip to France and enjoyed 
a brief view of the trenches. The soldier himself 
was inarticulate on the subject of his own soul and 
only the soldier really knew. Here and there one 
finds a genuine human document, like Donald 
Hankey's ''Student in Arms," which gave the aver- 
age reaction of a thinking man subjected to the trials 
and indignities of the private soldier in wartime, 
in words far above those the average soldier could 
have used. Theorizing about the soldier was worse 
than useless; it often brought results so directly 
opposite to the facts that the soldier himself would 
have been immensely amused to see them. 

As a matter of fact, the soldier had the average 
mind and faith of the young American, with its 
grave lapses and its profound sources of power. 
He was characterized by inquiry rather than cer- 
tainty, by desire rather than belief. His mind was 
restless, keen, eager; it had little background or sta- 
bility. It was dominated by the mind of the mass, so 
that educated men had identical habits of mind with 

145 



146 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

the ignorant on problems of army life. The moral 
standards of the soldier were a direct outgrowth of 
the morals of sport and business rather than those of 
the church. He had a sense of fair play, of dealing 
with men as men, but no feeling whatever of divine 
commandments or of universal law. 

A significant incident, bringing out the peculiar 
ideals of the soldier, is related by Judge Ben Lindsey 
in his book, ''The Doughboy's Beligion." He tells 
how a number of Y. M. C. A. secretaries conducted 
questionnaires at various times as to what three sins 
the soldiers considered most serious and what three 
virtues the most important, hoping to elicit a reply 
that the most reprehensible sins were drink, gam- 
bling and sexual vice. But hardly a soldier men- 
tioned these three. The men were practically unan- 
imous in selecting as the most grievous sin, coward- 
ice and the greatest virtue, courage ; as second, self- 
ishness and its correlative virtue, self-sacrifice ; and 
as third, pride, the holier-than-thou attitude, with 
its virtue, modesty. The result, to one who knew the 
soldier, would have been a foregone conclusion. 

The soldier was honest, he gave no cut-and- 
dried answers but his own full opinion, based upon 
the circumstances of his own life. At the front cour- 
age is actually the most important attribute of man- 
hood and cowardice the unforgivable sin. One cow- 
ard can at any moment imperil the lives of his entire 
unit by crying out in surprise on a night patrol, by 
deserting his post as sentinel or gas guard, by infect- 
ing with the spirit of panic the weaker men who fol- 
low any contagious example. Selfishness likewise 
was more than serious; it was vital. The selfish 
man was one who ate more than his share of the 



THE KELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIEB 147 

scanty rations on the marcli, who did not carry his 
full pack but had to be helped by others, who was 
first in line at the canteen but last to volunteer for 
disagreeable duty. Pride, on the other hand, was 
not dangerous but merely irritating in the extreme 
to an army of civilians, of Americans with the spirit 
of equal citizens, who felt that they were doing 
everything for their country and resented equally the 
autocratic and the patronizing manner. Besides the 
soldier saw examples of these his highest virtues 
about him constantly. Courage became a common- 
place; self-sacrifice an every-day matter. Officers 
often shared the discomforts and exceeded the dan- 
gers of their men. When one reads the ac- 
counts of citations for the D. S. C. and Medal of 
Honor, one wonders that human beings could do such 
things. And when we who were at the front recall 
the utter democracy of those days, how salutes and 
formality of every kind were forgotten while only 
leadership based on personality could prevail, we re- 
alize anew the emphasis of the soldier on modesty 
and his resentment of the attitude of many a civilian 
and even a few military men in patronizing him 
either as a common soldier or as a miserable sinner. 
As to religious tendencies, the soldier had, first and 
foremost, hope. He looked forward to better things 
both for himself and for the world. He had the re- 
ligious longing and the religious certainty that the 
future will witness the dawning of a better day. He 
had a vast respect for manhood, though his democ- 
racy did not go so far as to include other nations, 
whom he very largely despised on account of their 
^'queerness'^ and his own ignorance. He had an 
abiding hatred for anything which smacked in the 



148 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

slightest degree of hypocrisy or *^bluff." I men- 
tion this in my next chapter in connection with 
preaching to soldiers, but preaching was not the 
only field in which it applied. The soldier laid an 
inordinate value upon personal participation in 
front line work, ignoring the orders which neces- 
sarily kept the major part of the A. E. F. in back 
area work, in supply, repair, or training duty. I 
know of one chaplain, for example, who joined a 
famous fighting division shortly after the armistice, 
through no fault of his own but because he had been 
previously detailed to other duty, and who found 
his service there full of obstacles through the sus- 
picion of the men — ^because he who was preaching 
to them had not been under fire when they were. 
Of course, this worked favorably for those of us 
whom the boys had personally seen under fire at the 
first aid post or in the trenches. 

This very respect for deeds and suspicion of 
words, especially of polite or eloquent words, made 
for suspicion of the churches and churchmen. We 
had so pitifully few chaplains to a division, and some 
of them were necessarily assigned to hospitals in the 
rear. Only here and there did a Y. M. C. A. or 
K. of C. secretary go with the men under fire. True, 
they had nothing to do there, as there was no can- 
teen or entertainment hut at the front; true, strict 
orders forbade their entering certain territory or 
going over the top. The soldier asked not of orders 
or duties; he knew only that this man, who in 
many cases seemed to consider himself superior, 
who preached and taught and organized, had not 
slept night after night in the rain, had not fallen 
prone in the mud to dodge the flying missiles, had 



THE BELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIEE 149 

not lived on one cold meal a day or had to carry ra- 
tions on his shoulder that he and his comrades might 
enjoy their scanty fare. 

Therefore the soldier cared little for creeds of any 
kind. He could not apply any particular dogmas to 
the unique circumstances in which he found himself 
— he had probably never applied them to any great 
extent even in the more commonplace circumstances 
of peace — and he was suspicious of many of those 
who attempted to apply them for him. The soldier 
needed religion; he wanted God; he cared very 
little for churches, creeds or churchmen. 

In most characteristics the Jewish soldier was one 
with his Christian brothers. He differed only in 
those special facts or ideas which showed a different 
home environment or a different tradition. For ex- 
ample, the usual Christian minister used the word, 
''atonement" with a special meaning which was 
understood, if not accepted, by every Christian 
present, but which meant nothing whatever to the 
Jew, except through the very different association 
with the Day of Atonement. So any analysis of 
the religion of the Christian soldier would begin 
with his attitude toward the atonement, but with the 
Jewish soldier this must be omitted — ^he had no at- 
titude at all. The Jewish soldier was guided by the 
same general facts in his attitude toward the Jewish 
religion which animated the Christian soldier in 
his attitude toward the Christian religion; the dif- 
ference was largely that of the religion which they 
considered rather than of the men themselves. 

Of course, it was hard to be a good Jew in the 
army. The dietary laws were impossible of fulfill- 
ment, and the Talmudic permission to violate them 



150 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

in case of warfare meant less to the average soldier 
than the fact that he was breaking them. The Sab- 
bath could not be kept at all, even in rest areas 
where there was no immediate danger to life. No 
soldier could disobey an order to work on the Sab- 
bath; if the work was there, the soldier had to 
do it. In many ways Judaism was difficult and 
Christianity just as difficult. For example, I know 
of one division where the Passover service was 
held under difficulties, as the unit was about to 
move, and where the Easter service had the same 
handicap, as the men had just finished moving and 
were not yet established in their new quarters. 
Most of the obstacles to religious observance were 
common to all religions. 

A few Jews denied or concealed their religion in 
the army as elsewhere. Some few enlisted under 
assumed names ; a number denied their Judaism and 
avoided association with Jews, perhaps fearing the 
anti-Semitism which they had heard was rife in 
military circles. Their fear was groundless and 
their deception, as a rule, deceived nobody. The 
American army as it was organized during the war 
had no place for prejudice of any kind. Efficiency 
was the watchword; the best man was almost in- 
variably promoted; in all my experience abroad I 
have never seen a clear case of anti-Semitism among 
higher officers and only seldom in the ranks. Oc-' 
casionally also I met the type of Jew who admitted 
his origin but had no interest in his religion. Such 
a one — a lieutenant — ^who was known as a friend of 
the enlisted men generally and especially of the Jew- 
ish ones, assisted me greatly in arranging for the 
services for the fall holydays, but did not attend 



THE RELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIEK 151 

those services Mmself. He represented the type 
now fortunately becoming rarer in our colleges, the 
men who have too much pride to deny their origin 
but too little Jewish knowledge to benefit by it. It is 
noteworthy that this particular man was stationed 
in the S. 0. S. and had at that time never been 
at the front. Most men turn toward religion under 
the stress of battle; those who have never been 
in battle presented in certain ways a civilian frame 
of mind. 

Most of the Jews in the army were orthodox in 
background, rather than either reform or radical. 
Perhaps the orthodox did not have the numerical 
superiority they seemed to possess; in that case 
I saw them as the most interested group, the ones 
who came most gladly to meet the chaplain. Not 
that the other two groups were lacking in this army, 
which took in practically all the men of twenty- one 
to thirty-one years in America. The dominating 
group, however, was orthodox in background, though 
most of them were not orthodox in conviction. 
Causes are not far to seek — they had never studied 
orthodoxy; they were young men and had few set- 
tled religious convictions ; they were in the midst of 
a modern world where other doctrines were more 
attractive. The fact is that their convictions were 
usually directed toward Zionism rather than to- 
ward one or another form of Judaism itself. Again, 
they were without reasons for their interest. Zion- 
ism appealed to them simply as a bold, manly, 
Jewish ideal; they did not enter into questions 
either of practicability or of desirability. In other 
words, they were young men, not especially thought- 
ful, who were interested in Jewish questions only 



152 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

as one of many phases of their lives. They had 
their own trend, but were glad to accept leadership 
of a certain type, adapted to their own lives and 
problems. 

All these Jewish soldiers welcomed a Jewish chap- 
lain. The Catholics and Protestants had chaplains, 
and all Jews except the negligible few who denied 
their faith were very glad to be represented also, 
to have their religion given official recognition in 
the army and to see their own chaplain working 
under the same authority and along the same lines 
as chaplains of other religions. Most of the Jewish 
soldiers had personal reasons also to greet a chap- 
lain. In many of the occasions, small and great, 
when a Jewish soldier desired advice, aid or friend- 
ship, he preferred a Jewish chaplain to any other 
person. As a chaplain he had the influence to take 
up a case anywhere and the information as to pro- 
cedure, while only a Jew can feel and respond to 
the special circumstances of the Jewish men. On 
the other hand, not all Jewish soldiers were eager to 
welcome the Jewish Welfare Board although they 
all liked it after it had arrived and made good. 
Some were afraid of any distinction in these semi- 
military welfare organizations, feeling that the two 
already in the field, the Y. M. C. A. and K. of C, 
were quite adequate. The Jewish "Welfare Board, 
however, made such an impression at once on both 
Jews and non-Jews that even the doubtful ones 
became reconciled and felt that Jewish work in the 
army was more than justified by results. As always 
among Jews, who lay great emphasis on non-Jewish 
opinion, one of the chief causes of the popularity 
among Jews of Jewish war work was its popular- 



THE BELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER 153 

ity among Christians. When a Jewish boy found 
his building overcrowded by non-Jews, when he 
had to come early to get a seat at the picture show 
among all the Baptists and Catholics, when he saw 
Christian boys writing to their parents on J. W. B. 
stationery, he thought more of himself and his own 
organization. This same fact refuted the argument 
against segregation; men of all faiths used the 
J. W. B. huts, just as they did those of the other 
welfare organizations. They were one more facility • 
for men of every religion, even though organized 
by Jews and conducted from a Jewish point of view. 

In their religious services, as in most other things, 
the Jewish boys liked practices which reminded them 
of home. Just as many of them enjoyed a Yiddish 
story at an occasional literary evening, so they all 
appreciated the traditional Seder at Passover more 
than all the shows and entertainments which were 
provided at the Passover leave. They preferred 
to have many of the prayers in Hebrew, even though 
I seldom had a Jewish congregation in the army 
in which more than one third of the men understood 
the Hebrew prayers. They liked the home-like and 
familiar tone of the Jewish service on both Sabbaths 
and festivals. They preferred to wear their caps 
at service and to carry out the traditional custom 
in all minor matters. 

But at the same time they had no objection to 
changes in traditional practice. The abbreviated 
prayerbook of the Jewish Welfare Board was much 
appreciated, even though one or two of the boys 
would state proudly that they had also a special 
festival prayerbook. The short service was prac- 
tical and the boys therefore preferred it to the 



154 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FRANCE 

longjer one of the synagogue., They understood 
that, with the large number of non-Jews at our 
services and the usual majority of Jews who could 
not read Hebrew, it was necessary to read part of 
the prayers in English. They liked an English 
sermon, too, although the chaplain skilled in army 
methods always gave a very informal talk, far from 
the formal sermon of the synagogue. And when 
interested they asked questions, often interrupting 
the even flow of the sermon but assisting the rabbi 
and congregation to an understanding of the problem 
at issue. 

One of the chief characteristics of an army con- 
gregation was its constant desire to participate in 
the service. The soldiers liked responsive readings ; 
they preferred sermons with the open forum 
method; they were ready to volunteer to usher, 
to announce the service throughout the unit, or for 
any job from moving chairs to chanting the 
service. At the Passover services at Le Mans, 
we had all the volunteers necessary among 
the crowd for everything from "K. P." (kitchen 
police) to assist in preparing the dinner to an ex- 
cellent "reader for the prophetic portion. The ser- 
vices meant more to the soldiers as they became 
their own. 

Another characteristic of services in the army was 
the large number of non-Jews attending them. I 
have come to a Y. M. C. A. on a Sunday morning 
directly after the Protestant chaplain, when most of 
his congregation joined me, and my group in conse- 
quence was nine-tenths non-Jewish. At first this 
factor was a source of embarrassment to many of the 
Jewish men. They came to me beforehand to 



THE RELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOIi)IER 155 

whisper that a few non-Jews were present, but I 
took it as a matter of course, having learned my les- 
son with my first service in France. Later even the 
most self-conscious of Jews accepted the presence of 
non-Jews at a Jewish service just as Christians ex- 
pect those of other denominations than their own. 
When Jewish services often have from ten to eighty 
per cent, of non-Jews in attendance, the Jewish sol- 
diers are doubly glad to have a partially English ser- 
vice and a sermon. They want the Christians to re- 
spect their religion as they do their own, an end 
usually very easy of attainment. And while a few 
Jews would have preferred to drop the special Jew- 
ish characteristics of our service, I have never heard 
a critical word from a Christian about our wearing 
our hats, our Hebrew prayers, and the rest. Often, 
in fact, I have had to answer respectful questions, 
'giving the sort of information which broadens both 
sides and makes for general tolerance. 

At the front, even the most thoughtless desired 
some sort of a personal religion. In the midst of the 
constant danger to life and limb, seeing their com- 
rades about them dead and wounded, with life re- 
duced to the minimum of necessities and the few ele- 
mental problems, men were forced to think of the 
realities of life and death. With these eternal ques- 
tions forced upon them, the great majority must al- 
ways turn to religion. The men prayed at the front. 
They wanted safety and they felt the need of God. 
After a battle they were eager to offer thanks for 
their own safety and to say the memorial prayers 
for their friends who had just laid down their lives. 
Perhaps the most religious congregation I have ever 
had was the little group of men who gathered to- 



156 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FRANCE 

gether under the trees after the great battle at the 
Hindenburg Line. The impressions of the conflict 
had not yet worn off. The men were, in a way, up- 
lifted by their terrific experiences. And the words 
they spoke there of their fallen comrades were infi- 
nitely touching. The appeal of a memorial prayer 
was so profound in the army that many of the Prot- 
estant chaplains followed the Episcopal and Catho- 
lic custom and prayed for the dead although their 
own churches do not generally follow the custom. 

But with all this deep yearning for personal reli- 
gion, the men adopted fatalism as their prevalent 
philosophy. For one thing, it seemed to answer the 
immediate facts the best. When five men are to- 
gether in a shell hole and a bursting shell kills three 
of them and leaves the two unharmed, all our 
theories seem worthless. When one man, volunteer- 
ing for a dangerous duty, comes back only slightly 
gassed, while another left at headquarters is killed 
at his dinner by long distance fire, men wonder. 
And when they must face conditions like this day 
after day, never knowing their own fate from minute 
to minute, only sure that they are certain to be killed 
if they stay at the front long enough, they become fa- 
talists sooner or later. As the soldiers used to say, 
''If my number isn't on that shell, it won't get me." 
I argued against fatalism many times with the sol- 
diers, but I found when it came my own turn to live 
under fire day after day that a fatalistic attitude was 
the most convenient for doing one's duty under the 
constantly roaring menace, and I fear that — with 
proper philosophic qualifications — for the time 
being, I was as much of a fatalist as the rest. 

At the rear the personal need for religion was less 



THE BELIGION" OF THE JEWISH SOLDIEK 157 

in evidence. The men wlio had gone through the fire 
were not untouched by the flame, and gave some evi- 
dence of it from time to time. The men who had not 
been at the front, who comprised the majority in 
back areas, had no touch of that feeling. They all 
shared in the yearning for home and the things of 
home and for Judaism as the religion of home, for 
the traditional service of the festivals, for the friend- 
ship, ministrations and assistance of the chaplain. 
Judaism meant more to them in a strange land, amid 
an alien people, living the hard and unlovely life of 
the common soldier, than it ever did at home when 
the schul was just around the corner and the care- 
less youth had seldom entered it. The lonely soldier 
longed for Judaism as the religion of home just as 
under fire he longed for comfort from the living 
God. And the military approval of all religions on 
the same plane, the recognition by the non-Jewish 
authorities of his festivals and his services, gave 
Judaism a standing in his eyes which it had lacked 
when only the older people of his own family ever 
paid much attention to religion. Thus Judaism as 
an institution, as the religion of home, had a great 
place in the heart of the soldier in France. 

Some of the men, especially at the first, felt that 
they were being neglected by the Jews of America, 
that our effort was not commensurate with that 
which the Christian denominations were making to 
care for the soldiers of their faiths. We must ad- 
mit sadly that they had some justification for such a 
view. Our representatives arrived in France late 
though not at all too late for splendid results. 
American Jewry was almost criminally slow in car- 
ing for our hundred thousand boys in service 



158 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

abroad. A few of the soldiers carried this com- 
plaint even to the point of bitterness and estrange- 
ment from Judaism. Here and there I met an en- 
listed man who challenged Jewry as negligent. Usu- 
ally these were not our most loyal or interested 
Jews, but they were Jews and should not have been 
neglected. The men who entertained real loyalty 
to their faith were usually active already in some 
minor way and ready to cooperate with the Jewish 
Welfare Board when it was in a position to back 
them up. Most of the men, however, were eager to 
forgive as in a family quarrel as soon as our wel- 
fare workers arrived in France and showed imme- 
diate accomplishment. 

Our Jewish boys came back from overseas with 
certain new knowledge of life and new valuation 
of their religion. Beginning merely as average 
young men in their twenties, they acquired the need 
and appreciation of their ancestral faith, though 
not in a conventional sense. They are not to-day 
reform Jews in the sense of adherents of a reform 
theology; neither are they orthodox in the sense 
of complete and consistent observance. They have 
felt the reality of certain truths in Judaism, the com- 
fort it brings to the dying and the mourner, the 
touch of home when one celebrates the festivals 
in a foreign land, the real value of Jewish friends, 
a Jewish minister, a Jewish club to take the place 
of the home they missed over there. That is, Juda- 
ism means more to them both as a longing and an 
institution. 

But not all the things which we customarily ^as- 
sociate with Judaism have this appeal to them. 
Some seem to them matters of complete indifference, 



THE EELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIEE 159 

and the usual empliasis on the wrong thing makes 
them feel that the synagogue at home is out of 
sympathy with their new-found yearning. If we 
give them what we consider good for them, they 
will take nothing. If we give them what they want 
— the religion of God, of home, of service — ^and 
with all three terms defined as they have seen and 
felt them, then they will prove the great constructive 
force in the synagogue of to-morrow. The Jewish 
soldier had religion; if he was at the front, he has 
had the personal desire for Grod; in any case he 
has felt the longing for the religion of home. He 
was often proud of his fellow Jews, sometimes of his 
Judaism. He did heroic acts gladly, feeling the 
added impetus to do them because he must not dis- 
grace the name of Jew. Kiddush ha Shem, sancti- 
fication of the name of God, was the impelling motive 
'of many a wearer of the D. S. C, though he may 
never have heard the term. The recognition by 
church and synagogue of the world-shaking events 
of the war must be accompanied by an equal 
recognition of the influence of war on the minds and 
hearts of the men who engaged in it, and for whom 
those world-shaking events have become a part of 
their very being. 



CHAPTER XI 

PEEACHING TO SOLDIEES 

PEEACHING to soldiers, as I soon learned, was 
a very different thing from addressing a civil- 
ian congregation. The very appearance of the 
group and place was odd to a minister from civil 
life — ^yonng men in olive drab, sitting on the rough 
benches of a welfare hut or grouped about in a 
comfortable circle on the grass of a French pasture. 
The group was homogeneous to an extent elsewhere 
impossible, as all were men, all were young, and 
all were engaged in the same work and had the 
same interests. The congregation and the preach- 
ing became specialized; the work became narrower 
but more directly applicable to the individual than 
in civil life. The soldiers had unusual experiences 
and interests as their common background; 
their needs were different from those of any group 
of civilians, in or out of a church or synagogue. 
They were soldiers and had to be understood and 
approached as such. 

The circumstances of our services were never 
twice the same. I have led groups in worship in 
huts of the Yi. M. C. A., K. of C, and J. W. B. ; 
in chateaux, army offices, and barns; yes, and out 
of doors in the rain. I have come to a Y. M. C. A. 
and found it full, taking my group for an an- 
nounced service to the stage and lowering the cur- 

160 



PREACHING TO SOLDIERS 161 

tain for privacy. Once, in a great brick building 
used by the ''Y," I found the place occupied by 
a miscellaneous crowd of a thousand men, reading, 
writing, playing checkers, lined up at the canteen 
for candy and cigarettes. My services had been 
announced and my fifty men were present, some 
of them after a five-mile walk. The secretary m 
charge and I walked about to find a vacant spot 
and finally found one, the prize ring. So I called 
for attention, announced my service, and held it 
in the prize ring, with my men seated on benches in 
the ring itself. The non- Jews near by stopped their 
reading or writing to listen to the little sermon, 
so that my actual audience was considerably larger 
than my group of worshipers. 

I rememiber one week-day evening when I came 
to a J. W. B. hut in a camp near Le Mans for 
an announced service only to find the place packed 
to the doors. On inquiry, for such a crowd was 
unprecedented in this particular camp, I found that 
a minstrel show had been unexpectedly obtained 
and was to run later in the evening. So, while 
the actors were making up behind the curtain, I 
held forth in front, ^nd when the show was an- 
nounced as ready, a couple of Irish soldiers and a 
Swede pushed to one side and made a little room 
for me in the front row. 

This very informahty and friendliness of spirit 
meant, first of all, that one could not " preach '' 
to soldiers in any case. They were intolerant of 
preaching. They did not want to be preached to. 
They wanted ''straight goods, right from the 
shoulder." They wanted deeds more than words, 
or at least words which were simple and direct, of 



162 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

the force of deeds. One who knew soldiers had to 
talk to them, not preach. The more informal, the 
more direct, the more effective. A good sermon 
would often miss fire completely before an audience 
of soldiers when a good talk would wake them 
up and stir them. Informality, simplicity, knowl- 
edge of the soldier and his needs were the best 
qualities with which to approach the enlisted man, 
especially when he was or had been in the actual 
fighting and thus acquired a new sense of perspec- 
tive. The strongest hatred of the fighting man was 
directed toward sham of whatever type, and he ex- 
erted that prejudice without any fine sense of dis- 
crimination against anything that seemed to him pre- 
tentious or hollow. The danger of pretense or dis- 
honesty in the trench or on a patrol seemed to have 
entered into the whole mentality of the soldier. He 
distrusted the brilliant orator, who found more dif- 
ficulty in winning him over than did the simpler 
and more direct type of speaker. He was certain 
to prick the bubble of a poseur at once, and was 
more than suspicious of anything which even hinted 
at pose or pretense. 

For one thing, the material had to be concrete, 
the sort of thing the soldier knew. Jew and non- 
Jew were very nearly the same in the army, with 
certain minor differences of background. And 
hardly ever did one have an audience composed 
overwhelmingly of Jews; there was always a large 
admixture of others in any army audience, even 
when a Jewish service had been announced. Now, 
as to background and memories, our army was too 
mixed to rely on them for much material. When 



PREACHING TO SOLDIERS 163 

the chaplain spoke of home, the soldier might think 
of a tenement home or a ranch-house or a moun- 
taineer's cottage. Certainly, only a few would ever 
have the same picture as the chaplain. When he 
'spoke of foreigners, jlie might be addressing a 
group composed largely of Poles, Italians and Irish, 
who entertained very different ideas of what a 
foreigner might be, but would all consider our old 
Southern population, white and black, as foreign. 

The only common ground of all soldiers was the 
army. The men knew work, discipline, war. They 
did not regard these things as an officer would, and 
a wise preacher found out their attitude in detail 
whenever he could. But this was concrete material, 
common to them all. They all hated to be under 
authority, but had nevertheless learned the lesson of 
discipline for practical purposes. They were fas- 
cinated by fighting, but feared it and preferred it, on 
the whole, to the tedium of peace. They found a 
greater monotony in army drill than in any other 
one thing in the world. They were brave when 
occasion arose. They had seen their friends drop 
dead at their side and had mourned and buried 
them. They had seen comrades promoted, now by 
favoritism, now by ability, and held a mixed feeling 
of ambition and of dislike for responsibility and the 
drudgery of thinking for themselves. They had 
problems of conduct, problems of morale, problems 
of vision, and they welcomed any discussion of their 
own problems in their own language, while despis- 
ing infinitely the man who made a mistake in mili- 
tary terminology or showed lack of knowledge of 
the army. Their knowledge and their interest was 



164 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FKANCE 

narrow bait keen, and one was compelled to meet 
the soldier on Ms own ground to interest or in- 
fluence Mm. 

TMs concrete material of the soldier's daily life 
had to be presented to him in his own language — 
minus the profanity which was all too common and 
meaningless in the average soldier's vocabulary. 
Here again the soldier proved a unique audience. 
With all his quickness to grasp an idea, his light- 
ning sense of humor, his immediate sense of reality 
and recognition of fact, he had in many oases the 
vocabulary of a ten-year-old child. Many of our 
soldiers were from the mine, the farm, the sweat- 
shop. Many of them learned English from the daily 
papers; many from their semi-literate companions. 
A few hundred very simple English words and plenty 
of army slang were the chief reliance of the preacher, 
and other expressions had to be defined as one went 
along. One did not need to ''talk down" to the 
soldier in ideas — he could leap past a course of 
argument to a sure conclusion in any field within 
his experience — but the language was necessarily 
the language of the soldier for either full compre- 
hension or complete sympathy. 

Of course, the average soldier, Jew or non-Jew, 
had no homiletic background ; he was not a frequent 
listener to sermons in civil life. In many cases 
the men admitted that they had never been in a 
church in their lives. Many of the Jewish boys had 
not been to a synagogue for years, and when they 
had gone many of them had attended an orthodox 
service where they had not understood a single 
word of the Hebrew service. Therefore the lan- 
guage of the Bible meant literally nothing to them 



PREACHING TO SOLDIERS 165 

without paraphrasing, except where it came very 
close to modem speech. Therefore also the cant 
phrases of the pulpit or of the public speaker 
generally had no meaning whatever to their minds, 
favorable or the reverse. They left the soldiers 
completely untouched. Thus the best civilian 
sermon may have been meaningless to a group 
of soldiers, while a direct talk, even a sort of con- 
versation with the audience, was of real benefit to 
them. For there was no formality about an army 
audience. If one made the mildest joke, the boys 
laughed out. If one ' 'paused for a reply, ' ' the reply 
was apt to come in loud and unmistakable tones. 
In a talk to a group about to return home, for ex- 
ample, I remarked, ''I suppose you'll all reenlist in 
the National Guard when you get mustered out," 
only to be greeted by an immediate chorus of groans. 
If the soldiers were interested, they interrupted with 
questions ; if uninterested, they frankly got up and 
left the room. They gave more than the cold de- 
corum of a church; they gave a living response; 
they talked with and thought with the preacher. 
But the type of decorum one found in a church or 
temple was utterly beyond them. Their response 
was better, but different in its very activity. 

Certainly, there were different audiences even 
among soldiers. I know of one preacher who trav- 
eled about France with a great speech on courage 
which fell utterly flat on a certain occasion. He 
had made the mistake of speaking on courage to 
a group of men from the Service of Supply, whose 
chief contribution to the war had been carrying 
cases of canned salmon and repairing roads. A 
certain chaplain had a battalion of recent immi- 



166 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN TEANCE 

grants mustered for a service before going into 
battle, only to be privately cursed afterward in the 
five languages spoken by the boys he had addressed. 
For he had made those boys give up their short 
period of rest to talk to them of home and mother, 
to make them think of the dear ones they were 
trying to forget, to put before them the one thought 
that was most likely to unnerve them for the terrible 
task ahead! 

It was just as great a mistake to preach about 
sacrifice after a battle. In battle sacrifice was the 
most common thing; ordinary men rose to heights 
of heroism to save their ^'buddies" or to assist 
in the advance. The high courage of self-sacrifice 
became familiar. Preaching self-sacrifice to these 
men was useless — for Christian as well as Jew. 
They had seen stretcher bearers shot down while 
carrying their precious burdens to the rear. They 
had seen officers killed while getting their jnen 
under shelter. They had seen the gas guard, as a 
part of his daily duty, risk the most horrible of 
deaths in order to give the alarm for his comrades. 
Such men responded to an appeal on the divine 
in man, on the brotherhood of all those heroes about 
them, on Americanism, on a hundred congenial 
themes; they did not see the cogency of an appeal 
to sacrifice. 

The profound friendships and violent dislikes 
of the soldier have been often noticed. His fidelity 
to his "buddy," to any populaT officer, to his 
company and regiment, stand out as part of his 
vigorous, boyish outlook. On the other hand, a 
swiftly acquired prejudice would go with him for- 
ever in the face of many facts and much argument 



, PKEACHING TO SOLDIEES 167 

to tlie contrary. The relative standing of the Y. M. 
C. A. and the Salvation Army among the men is a 
case in point. The Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation was by far the largest war work organiza- 
tion which worked among the mass of the soldiers, 
as the Red Cross confined its activities largely to 
hospitals and related fields. It was a wide-spread 
organization, covering practically every unit and 
almost every type of activity, religious, athletic, 
entertainment, canteen. But the soldier, while using 
the Y. M. C. A., disliked it. The Salvation Army, a 
very small organization in both amount and scope 
of work, which I never saw in action because I 
did not happen to be in the limited sector it covered, 
was, however, popular if only by hearsay in every 
part of the great army. Now, the soldier had very 
real grievances against the "Y." It charged him 
more for its tobacco than did the quartermaster's 
store ; it gave away very little, while other organiza- 
tions, not burdened with the canteen, gave away 
a great deal; it had a certain proportion of misfits, 
men who did not belong in any military work, who 
considered themselves better than the common 
soldier and did not share his trials or his viewpoint. 
These facts were all explained later; some of 
them were inevitable. The presence of a board of 
inquiry in the army testified that the caliber even 
of army officers was not always what it should 
have been. The canteen had been undertaken by the 
Y. M. C. A. at the request of the army authorities, 
who desired to be relieved of the tremendous burden, 
and its prices were determined by cost plus trans- 
portation, which latter item was not included by the 
quartermaster's stores. The tremendous rush of 



168 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

the last six months of the war made the task coo 
great for any of the organaations in the field, includ- 
ing sometimes even the quartermaster's corps. But 
after the prejudice had been conceived it could not 
be shaken. It persisted in spite of excuses, in spite 
of remedies for some of the evils, in spite of the 
excellent work which the Y. M, C. A. did in the 
leave areas. I have mentioned its activities in Nice, 
Monte Carlo, and Grrenoble, how it provided the 
enlisted man with free entertainment, — excursions, 
dances and shows, during his entire period on leave. 
This striking contribution to the morale and the 
pleasure of the forces was almost overlooked in the 
general criticism. On the other hand, nobody ever 
heard the enthusiastic doughboy mention a mistake 
made by the more limited forces of the Salvation 
Army, which therefore received more than adequate 
commendation for its really effective work. 

A similar violent contrast existed in the soldier's 
attitude toward the British and colonial soldiers, es- 
pecially the Australians. The doughboy liked the 
''Ausies"; he despised the ''Tommie." The usual 
phrase was : * ' Oh, well, the ' Tommies ' are all right 
to hold the line, but it takes the 'Ausies' to make 
a push." This was strictly untrue, according to 
the terrific fighting we ourselves witnessed on the 
British front. It was simply that the Australians 
were all volunteers, young and dashing, like the 
pioneers of the western plains, the precursors of 
our own men. They were independent, lawless and 
aggressive. The British whom we knew were the sur- 
vivors of four years of warfare, veterans of many a 
campaign in the field and siege in the hospital, or 
older men, the last draft of the manhood of Great 



PREACHING TO SOLDIEES 169 

Britain. No wonder our boys liked the ''Ausies" 
and refused to see any good whatever in that very 
different species of men, the ''Tommies." 

So the soldier was an exacting but a grateful 
audience. He emphasized deeds rather than words, 
and therefore he was much easier of approach for 
his own chaplain, who was under the same regula- 
tions as he, who went with him to the front and 
tended the wounded and the dead under fire, than 
for the most eloquent or the most illustrious of 
civilian preachers. He conceived violent likings and 
equally violent prejudices, always based upon some 
sort of reason but usually carried beyond a reason- 
able degree. He had to be approached on his own 
ground, with material from his own experience, with 
language which he could understand. And when 
that was done, he was the most thankful audience in 
the world. He thought with the speaker, responded 
to him, aided him. As an audience he was either the 
most friendly and helpful in the world or the most 
disappointing. But that depended on the speaker 
and the audience being in harmony, knowing and 
liking each other. A man who knew and loved the 
soldier could work with him and help him in achiev- 
ing great results, for the American soldier, though 
the most terrible enemy, was also the best friend 
in the world. 



CHAPTER XII 

MOKALE AND MORALS 

NO thorough scientific study of the problem of 
morale has ever been made, in either military 
or civilian life. Every one is familiar with 
many of its manifestations, but very few have gone 
into their causes except incidentally to the practical 
needs of the moment. That was the case in the 
A. E. P., where both chaplains and line officers were 
deeply concerned in the morale of our troops, at 
first as fighting forces and after the armistice as 
citizens and representatives of America abroad. 
We tried this and that expedient, some good and 
some bad. Often we neglected the very act which 
was most essential. Often we did nothing what- 
ever until it was too late. Unit commanders, chap- 
lains, and even G-. H. Q. were alike forced to employ 
empirical, trial-and-error methods instead of a 
fundamental, scientific approach. The only apology 
for this situation is that we went into the army with 
certain equipment which did not include a rounded 
view of mass psychology, and that this same igno- 
rance is universal in civil life as well. A competent 
investigator would probably detect the same errors 
in similar social organizations of our young men 
in civil life which were so painfully obvious in the 
army. This brief chapter is by no means intended 
to take the place of such a scientific study; it may 

170 



MORALE AND MORALS 171 

serve as material for one, and in addition may pro- 
vide certain facts of importance in themselves. 

Morale in the army represented two distinct prob- 
lems, the front line and the rear. The former de- 
manded high tension, the necessity of unified and 
instantaneous action. The latter demanded steadi- 
ness in daily duties, training, drill and study, the 
same qualities needed by the worker in civil life 
but under unusual circumstances. And between the 
two there was a gap, because the let-down from the 
one type of morale might result, not in the other 
type, but in no morale at all. The good soldier in 
camp might be a very poor soldier at the front, 
where different qualities were required; the man 
who would win his decoration at the front for reck- 
less bravery was often the worst soldier in camp, 
judging by the number of punishments for the in- 
fraction of minor rules of discipline. There is the 
case, for example, of the former gunman who won 
his D. S. C. for the very qualities which had formerly 
sent him to prison. Even the best of soldiers, 
at both front and rear, had to withstand a serious 
mental shock when he passed from one of these 
situations to the other, and especially when he re- 
tired into a rest area after a hard spell in the 
trenches. 

In the American army front-line morale was by 
far the easier type to maintain. In some other 
armies, I was told, the opposite was the case, but the 
average American boy makes a good fighting soldier 
with far less strain than it takes to turn him into 
a good barracks or training-camp soldier. His is 
the dash, the courage, the spirit of '* Let's go!"; he 
is more likely to lack the sense of subordination, 



172 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

of instant obedience to orders, which constitutes 
the first essential of a good soldier in the rear. The 
object of morale at the front is action — instant, uni- 
fied, aggressive, with every nerve and muscle 
strained to the utmost toward the one end. The 
means of this type of morale is confidence. The 
good soldier thinks that he belongs to the best 
company in the best division in any army in the 
world; that his officers are the ablest, his comrades 
the most loyal, his own soldierly qualities at least 
on a par with the best. Each division was firmly 
convinced that its own battles won the war, while 
the others merely helped, None of them would give 
the French and British credit for more than ade- 
quate assistance, ignoring completely their years of 
struggle before we even entered the conflict. But 
this sort of self-centered confidence was the char- 
acteristic of the good soldier, the man who would 
follow his captain in any attack, however desperate, 
who never looked whether his comrades were coming 
but went ahead in calm certainty that they would 
be even with him. One hint of wavering or doubt 
would break up this high steadiness of spirit, but 
as long as it held the men who possessed it would 
fight on in the face of seemingly insuperable diffi- 
culties. 

I have mentioned the situation of the 27th Divi- 
sion from October 17th to 21&t, 1918, how they en- 
tered the attack with depleted numbers, tired in 
body and mind, after insufficient rest and wifli no 
fresh replacements. Day after day their dearest 
wish was that their relief might come and they 
might enjoy the often promised rest. They had 
seen their comrades killed and wounded until a 



MORALE AND MORALS 173 

regiment had only the normal nmnber of men to 
equip a company. Yet day after day the orders 
came for an advance, and every day those tired 
boys advanced. They did what we all considered 
impossible because they had the morale of good 
fighting men. They bore the ever-present danger 
of bursting shells and the sniper's bullet with boyish 
daring and constant success. They labored harder 
than any worker in civilian life, sleeping in the rain, 
marching, carrying their heavy rifles and packs 
made mercifully light for the occasion, digging in 
the clinging clay of the Somme valley. This, too, 
they did not gladly, often not willingly, but because 
it was part of the game, and they were good sports- 
men and would see it through. 

The peril to morale at the front was nerves. 
Although it may be hard to conceive, the dashing, 
aggressive soldiers might fall before this danger. 
Aggravated 'cases, true neuroses, we called "shell 
shock," slighter ones, "nerves," but the two were 
the same. The constant noise, exertion, hard work, 
loss of sleep, undernourishment, produced a peculiar 
mental state. Above all, the high nervous tension 
which was necessary for men to persist in these 
conditions had its dangers, too. By reason of it the 
wounded were able to bear more than their ordinary 
share of sutfering, so that we saw constant ex- 
amples of stoicism at the front. But when the 
excitement and tension wore off its effect was lost, 
and in base hospitals the soldiers were no better 
patients than young men in civilian life. When 
overburdened nerves gave way, the soldier was com- 
pletely lost. A chaplain has told me of a long night 
spent with a patrol in front of the lines, not talking 



174 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

with the men but instead trying to hold the top ser- 
geant to his post. The sergeant was a fine soldier, 
with a splendid record all through the Meuse-Ar- 
gonne campaign, but that night, in the long vigil, 
his nerves had given way and the big, stolid soldier 
was trembling with fear. Only constant persuasion 
and the threat of force held him to his duty, and the 
next day he had to be assigned to work as supply 
sergeant in order to save the nightly patrol from 
panic that would certainly come if the non-com. 
in command failed them. 

The soldier had a mixed feeling toward battle. 
The shock of conflict is exciting and exerts a sort 
of fascination. But the excitement was short while 
the danger was omnipresent and the work could 
never be escaped. The soldier regarded war as 
a sort of deadly game, where the contest called forth 
every energy and the stakes were life itself. But 
battle contains another factor — a compound of work 
and discomfort. War is nine parts sordid labor 
to one of glorious action. It was mixed with cooties, 
mud, sleeping in the rain, marching all night and 
lying down under artillery fire. It included digging, 
and the soldier found no more romance in digging 
in at the front than in digging a ditch at home, ex- 
cept that under fire he dug considerably faster. 
War involved carrying a pack, and that became 
speedily the pet hatred of the enlisted man. As 
the prisoner dreads the cell in which he is confined, 
so the infantryman feels toward his pack clinging 
with its eighty-odd pounds as he trudges along 
the weary roads. War is a glorious memory now, 
but it was neither glorious nor pleasant to live 
through. 



MORALE AND MORALS 175 

When the troops retired for rest and training, the 
problem of morale became reversed at once. Now 
it became a matter of discipline and drill. Instead 
of danger and discomfort, our trials were work and 
monotony. A high type of morale in the rear meant 
that the men were not absent without leave, that 
they worked hard at their drill and became automatic 
in its motions, that they obeyed every rule of dis- 
cipline, large and sonall. iSaluting, for example, 
was very important at the rear; we never once 
thought of it at the front. This regime was not 
■always easy, /though at first we could hold out 
the object of winning the war, as in the pamphlet 
on sex education, ''Fit to Fight." After the war 
was over that object no longer remained. But the 
hard work remained, the kitchen police, the clean- 
ing up of quarters, the carrying of the pack, the 
incessant drill. "Squads east and west," when the 
fighting was at an end and there was no direct 
use for maneuvers, seemed to the soldiers simply 
made work. In fact, much of the work imposed 
on them during this period was actually devised with 
the special object of keeping them busy and there- 
fore out of mischief. 

The peril of this situation was obvious. It was 
that the tedium might grow too great and the men 
yield to the temptations of drink, gambling and vice. 
These would result in disorder, insubordination, 
time lost from duty, venereal disease, — any number 
of possible evils. They would demoralize a unit 
at the rear as readily as nerves would demoralize it 
at the front. Sexual vice and sexual disease, while 
statistically not so great in the army as among the 
same age groups in civil life, was still serious. The 



176 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN- IN FRANCE 

different social system of France put temptation 
directly in the way; prostitution was open and 
licensed, and the women of the streets quick to 
accost the wealthy foreigners, whose dollar a day 
was so much greater than the pay of the French 
soldier. At the same time, the French girls of good 
family did not meet strange soldiers, dance with 
them, talk to them, as was done in the States. 
Their whole conception of good breeding and of 
marriage combined to forbid any contact except in 
the rare case of a proper introduction into the 
French home. Courteous in showing the stranger 
his way or telling him the time of day, the average 
Frenchman was in no hurry to introduce foreign sol- 
diers into his family circle unless he had certificates 
or personal introductions to the particular soldiers. 
At home the soldier had been lionized from the time 
of his enlistment until his leaving for overseas. 
He had been entertained, fed, provided with dances, 
shows and automobile rides. The daughters of rich 
and cultivated families tended canteen or danced 
with the soldiers. But in France the daughter of 
a good family went out only with a man she knew, 
and then strictly chaperoned. Even when she knew 
a man personally, a respectable girl would hardly 
think of walking down the street with him. 

This seclusion of respectable French girls and the 
conspicuousness of the loose element made many 
soldiers hold a light opinion of the virtue of French 
women generally. I remember an argument with 
one of the boys who had jusi stated that all French 
girls were careless in their morals. When pinned 
down to particulars, he admitted that he had met 
exactly three French girls beside those who had 



MOKALE AM) MOEALS 177 

accosted him on the street. Two had been sisters, 
at whose home a friend of his had been billeted, 
and when he and his friend had wanted to take 
them to an army vaudeville their mother had gone 
along. The third was the daughter of my landlady 
at Montfort, a fine rounded peasant type. On this 
scanty basis he had formed his typical opinions. 

The control of the minutiae of daily life together 
with the influence over the minds of men in the 
army should have enabled the authorities to suppress 
vice almost entirely. Unfortunately, this was never 
accomplished. Lectures, severe penalties for dis- 
ease ''incurred not in line of duty," and hberal 
provision for "early treatment" all together did not 
work the miracle. The prophylactic stations for so- 
called "early treatment" directly after exposure 
were patronized by a number of men, but never 
by a very large proportion of the number who were 
certainly exposed. The venereal hospitals where 
sufferers underwent both treatment and punishment 
had their full quota from every division which 
remained long in back areas, and most divisions 
left behind as many as two hundred and fifty men for 
further treatment after the thorough inspections 
preceding their departure for home. 

Drink was a less serious, though more prevalent 
danger. The law had prevented men in uniform 
from drinking in the United States; in France it 
forbade only their use of spirituous liquors, and 
even those were often available. So there was a 
good deal of beer and wine drinking, and some of 
cognac. The last was apt to result in drunkenness 
and disorder, but our military authorities had al- 
ways the power to declare certain cafes, which had 



178 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

violated regulations, ''out of bounds" for Ameri- 
cans, and as a last resort the French police would 
close such a place altogether. Grambling was the 
most prevalent vice of all, and one which was never, 
to my knowledge, controlled anywhere. It lacked 
gravity in so far as the soldiers had very little to 
gamble, and could incur no igreat losses. But it was 
always an easy resort to break the monotony of 
army life in training or rest areas, and always a 
menace to the type of manhood which we wanted to 
see among our American fighting men. 

The reliance on penalties as the chief mode of con- 
trolling young Americans was fundamentally un- 
sound both in theory and practice. The warnings 
against sexual vice lost half their effectiveness be- 
cause they were usually given by company of&cers, 
who emphasized the danger of disease and the mili- 
tary penalties rather than the appeal of loyalty or 
self-respect. Medical officers and chaplains were 
certainly better equipped for such special work, al- 
though probably no human being and no appeal 
can solve the entire problem. 

All these facts came slowly to the fore within 
the few months following the armistice, and we 
were able to observe them very clearly in the 
27th Division while in the Montfort area. While 
we wintered there, from November 1918 to 
February 1919, the morale of our troops, which 
had never weakened at the front even under the most 
terrible conditions, went down steadily during those 
three weary months. For one thing, we were con- 
stantly expecting orders to leave for home and con- 
stantly disappointed. We were inspected and re- 
inspected, drilled and drilled again. Warned not 



MORALE AND MORALS 179 

to begin an elaborate program of athletics, educa- 
tion or amusement, we worked from week to week 
and never instituted one-third of the work which 
we had planned and ready. Me^anwhile there was 
the cafe and the danger of vice and drink, so the men 
were kept drilling through the winter rains to keep 
them busy during the day and make them tired at 
night. This attempt was neither humane nor pos- 
sible and had only the worst effects. 

The failure with our division brought the pos- 
sibility of a constructive program before the higher 
command of the army, which inaugurated one just 
about the time our division left the area. Large 
schools were started in each permanent division in 
the district, giving both common school and technical 
branches, with the army university at Beaune as 
the head of the educational structure. Such a school 
was established in the Forwarding Camp, near Le 
Mans, where I saw it in busy operation. Athletic 
meets were arranged in each division, with larger 
ones at Le Mans and other central points for the 
best men in the separate units. More welfare huts 
of different agencies were established, with more 
canteen supplies from the States and more women 
workers for canteen service and dances. Each di- 
vision devoted more attention to its ''shows," usu- 
ally a musical comedy troupe, with very clever 
female impersonators to make up for the lack of 
chorus girls. 8ome of these shows had tours ar- 
nanged by the Y. M. C. A. or other agency, and 
a few of them even had gala performances in Paris. 
Regular religious services and other appointments 
with the chaplains were instituted and advertised, 
although we had always done this for ourselves in 



180 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN" FRANCE 

our own units. Leave areas were designated in the 
most beautiful sections of France, as well as permis- 
sion for a few furloughs in Italy and England, 
'rhe Stars and Stripes, always a valuable organ as 
the soldiers' newspaper, became the constant in- 
strument of propaganda to upbuild morale. Finally, 
the army took over official control of education, 
entertainment and athletics from the civilian agen- 
cies, designated a Welfare Officer to control them 
all, and asked the agencies formerly in control to 
cooperate with the newly appointed officials. All 
these were steps in the right direction, although at 
times such work was partially nullified by the choice 
of the wrong man as Welfare Officer. This was a 
position which only a professional educator could 
fill at all ; even an expert could hardly influence ac- 
tively a hundred thousand minds at once. Hardly 
any professional soldier, business man or engineer 
could have the breadth of view and technical knowl- 
edge to approach them. Of course, when army 
regulations prescribed a major for a particular posi- 
tion and only a lieutenant was available with the 
proper training, an untrained major was appointed 
and the lieutenant left in command of a platoon. 
Promotions were naturally few after the armistice, 
and the table of organization had to be complied 
with at all costs. 

The Stars and Stripes demands a few words 
in itself, both because of its excellent articles and 
cartoons and for its unique position as ^'the soldiers' 
newspaper. ' ' It was a well-written weekly publica- 
tion, which could coromand the services of many of 
the best of the younger writers and cartoonists in 
America. The knowledge that the Stars and 



MORALE AND MOEALS 181 

Stripes was semi-official, being published under 
military censorship, made its news material very 
influential on morale. Men believed anything they 
read there about the work of the various divisions, 
special distinctions, or the date of the homeward 
troop movement. But that very factor made the 
articles it published more or less suspected by the 
men. They knew they were propaganda, written 
for the benefit of morale, and they therefore read 
them, but derived much less effect from them than 
would otherwise have been the case. Still the 
writers, themselves soldiers, expressed the soldiers' 
view often enough and clearly enough to lend some 
value even to the suspected material from General 
Headquarters. 

After all, amusements, education and athletics 
were only palliatives in a confessedly irksome situa- 
tion. They did not touch the heart of that situation 
any more than really excellent welfare work satis- 
fies a group of employees in civil life who consider 
themselves underpaid and overworked. The essen- 
tials of morale were the elements which approached 
the soldiers' welfare most nearly — food, pay, mail 
and daily military routine. Army food was notor- 
iously bad, army cooks famous for lack of skill. 
Part of this, like other complaints, lay in the chronic 
grumbling of the soldiers. Obviously, they did not 
receive the kind of meals that ''mother used to 
make" or the product of a famous hotel. The food 
itself was usually of excellent quality but coarse, the 
menus well balanced but monotonous. This last was 
the chief grievance and one that was largely justi- 
fied. Most of our food had to be brought overseas 
in cans, and it took a skillful cook to disguise 



182 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

''corned willie/' ''monkeymeat" or ''goldfish" day 
in and day out. Yet corned beef, stew and salmon, 
to use their civilian names, were staples in the army 
diet. It became a question among us officers whether 
we preferred to drink good coffee, ruined by army 
cooks, or the excellently prepared chicory of the 
usual French restaurant. I, for one, preferred the 
British ration as superior in variety to that we 
received after we came into the American area, al- 
though it was normally not as large in amount as 
the ration of the American soldier. 

Pay and mail were notoriously unreliable in the 
A. E. F. Pay was regular for officers, of course, 
who could swear to their own pay vouchers, but not 
always for enlisted men, who required a service 
record to have their names put on the pay roll. 
When a man is a patient in nine hospitals within 
four months, we cannot expect his mail to follow 
him, nor his service record to stay at hand. 
These grievances were later remedied, the mail 
through the Main Post Office, the pay question by 
means of pay books and supplementary service 
records. Still, at one time it was by no means un- 
common to meet men just out of the hospital who 
had received neither mail nor pay for three months, 
or to find a man who had been shifted so often from 
one unit to another that his pay was six months 
in arrears. When we remember the little money at 
hand for any purpose whatever, when we bear in 
mind the loneliness of these boys so far from home, 
loved ones, even from common sights and familiar 
speech, we can imagine what a deprivation such 
troubles brougiit,) and how deeply they effected 
morale. Of course, as I have mentioned before, the 



MOEALE AND MORALS 183 

soldier never made allowances either for the diffi- 
culty of the task or the comparative success with 
which it was laccomplished. The soldier merely suf- 
fered and complained. 

I shall never forget the incessant complaints 
about that very necessary institution, the censor- 
ship of letters home. The last hope of the soldier 
was for glory in the eyes of the people at home. 
At least he would be a hero to them. But here 
the censor lifted his terrible shears. Stories of 
heroism, true or false, could not be told. Weeks 
after an action the soldier ^s family might read that 
he had taken part in it and even then the censor 
might return his letter if he mentioned any details. 
For many of the soldiers this was more than an- 
noying; it was serious. They were often not edu- 
cated, had written perhaps three or four letters in 
their lives, and could hardly face the task of writ- 
ing a second letter if the first was condemned. In 
any case no American wanted to submit his personal 
letters for his wife or sweetheart to a superior offi- 
cer for approval. Add to this the fact that the 
officer could sign for his own mail without other 
censorship except the possibility that the letter might 
be read at the base port, and censorship became an- 
other grievance to the enlisted man. 

'Finally, the greatest factor in morale, good or bad, 
was that intangible but very real entity, military 
discipline. The American boy hates to be under 
authority; to ask for leave to speak to his captain; 
to request permission to go for a few hours' leave 
after his day's duties are over; to address an offi- 
cer in the third person: "Is the captain feeling 
well this morning, sir?" Most American officers 



184 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

were human enough, with little of the class feeling 
of the British army. For that reason the soldier 
rarely hated his own officers, and often was heard 
to boast of ^ ' my lieutenant " or ' ' my captain. ' ' The 
soldier merely hated authority in general, as repre- 
sented largely by the necessity to salute any un- 
known officer whom he might meet. He never under- 
stood the lectures about the manliness of saluting or 
its military necessity ; he knew only that it was the 
sign of authority, to which he was subjected. 

Perhaps that is the root of the whole matter of 
morale. A good soldier at the rear was the man 
who sank his personality and became a unit in the 
squad. If too strongly defined an individual, he 
was a marked man; he became company clerk or 
kitchen police, according to his previous education. 
The good soldier was the one who acted automati- 
cally on receipt of orders, who saluted, said "Yes, 
sir," turned on his heel and seemed at once to be 
very busy. Even if he had been an executive or a 
lawyer in civil life, the constant drill made an autom- 
aton of the enlisted man ; he sank back into the mind 
of the crowd, adopted the usual opinions in the 
usual words, and lost for the time being his personal- 
ity. Drill made for automatic physical reactions 
to a certain set of commands and the temporary 
cessation of thought. In close-order drill Tom 
Smith submerged his personality and became 
''Number Three in the rear rank." He learned to 
swing about at the proper moment, following the 
man ahead of him, to respond instantly to the word 
of command without hesitating for its meaning, to 
stand and march and salute and obey. That was 



MOEALE AND MOKALS 185 

good for the rear, but at the front we needed Tom 
Smith again, and he might forget his place in the 
hne, rush forward on his own initiative and become 
a hero. The finest acts were those of individuals 
acting without orders, the private forming a 
stretcher party of volunteers to go out for the 
wounded, the corporal reforming the platoon when 
all the sergeants were disabled and leading them 
forward. Then in the long period after the war 
Tom Smith had to be lost, for Number Three in the 
rear ranks was needed again. 

The soldier lived in utter ignorance, not only of 
general events in the world and the army, but even 
of the things which would affect himself most 
closely. The enlisted man never knew a day in ad- 
vance when he would be transferred to a different 
post or a different duty, when he would be promoted 
or degraded in rank, when he was to attack the 
enemy or retire for a rest. Even the things he saw 
became distorted. A doughboy remarked to me 
just before the battle of the Selle Eiver, ''We're 
held up by a little stream twenty feet wide, with 
Jerry on top of the railroad embankment on the 
other side. If we can just get across that river and 
up that embankment, we'll end the war right there." 
Of course, our success three days later did not end 
the war; it was only part of a tremendous program 
which the private soldier did not envisage at all. 
The attack on the Selle Eiver was but one of a half- 
dozen actions carried on simultaneously in Flanders, 
on the Scheld, at Eheims, in the Argonne and on the 
Meuse. Our attack was made easier because of these 
others, and they in turn were successful because of 



186 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN FEANCE 

ours. The three hundred miles of battle-line were 
all one, and only the broadest possible view could 
give any idea at all of the truth. 

The officer, especially when on the staff, saw 
things in relation, but the soldier had to work in the 
dark. He never did understand the rules of the 
great game he was playing. Tactics were nothing 
to him. He knew only what it meant to march 
with a heavy pack all night, to rest in the damp cold 
of dawn when he was too weary to rest at all, 
to advance under fire and to dig in again and yet 
again. Much as he might later on revel in the 
raw heroism of it all, this 'arduous labor, blind- 
folded, left him a prey to doubt and rumor at the 
time. Eumors were one of the few foes of morale 
which persisted at both front and rear, because 
they were the product of ignorance and in both 
places ignorance persisted. No man can be quite 
steady in his duty when his mind is distracted 
by the c'ount;less rumors of army life. So fa^r 
as we had information to dispense, we were 
building up morale, even when the facts were not 
reassuring. Rumors about going home, being the 
most desirable, were the greatest menace of all. 
Men would come back from the hospital with half- 
healed wounds because the rumor said we were going 
home at once, and they wanted to go along. Men 
would take unofficial leave to see Paris before they 
died, just because the latest rumor had it that we 
were not to leave for another month. Every such 
disappointment or lapse of duty made the next 
rumor more dangerous and wider spread. 

The morale of the overseas forces described a slow 



MORALE AND MORALS 187 

downward curve froni the high point at the armi- 
stice until the news that the particular unit was 
going home, when it took an immediate upward 
bound. During the downward trend of the curve, 
the men grew to hate the army. The definite ele- 
ments which they naturally resented were empha- 
sized and exaggerated, although that was hardly 
necessary. At the same time, they felt immense 
pride in their own achievements, and a thorough 
contempt for ''joy-riders," as they termed the civil- 
ian travelers through France, the official investi- 
gators or representatives of civilian organizations, 
who witnessed the trenches as if on a sight-seeing 
party. This pride in their actual accomplishments, 
combined with resentment at the military subversion 
of ordinary civilian standards of life and manhood, 
was characteristic of the best minds in the ranks. 

The military system is of necessity heteronomous, 
while democracy must be autonomous. The very 
virtues of self-reliance, independence, responsibility, 
which we most emphasize in civil life, were the 
ones most actively discouraged among enlisted men. 
At the same time, the moral influences put upon them 
were those of compulsion and restraint. The regime 
for officers was radically different; it demanded re- 
sponsibility and removed much of the restraint. 
Hence the tendency of the army system was to 
produce officers with adequate mental processes and 
soldiers with automatic obedience to any kind of 
orders. The result, not difficult to foresee, was that 
the officers had far better minds but far poorer 
morals than the enlisted men. The officer was re- 
sponsible for himself ; the enlisted man had a number 



188 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN- IN FKANCE 

of superiors responsible for him. As a consequence 
the officer used his mind, the soldier stopped using 
his. On the other hand, the officer often abused 
his larger liberty, so that some of the officers of 
the A. E. F. were notorious for their loose living 
on the boulevards of Paris and other towns and 
brought shame upon their more decent comrades 
and the cause for which they fought. 

The conspicuous difference was not the result of 
differences in the men themselves, for we had no 
castes in the American army. Officers and men 
came from the same stock and from every group. 
It was the direct consequence of the different type 
of discipline and control to which they were sub- 
jected. The best officers and the best men sur- 
mounted it ; the worst yielded ; the average were af- 
fected more or less. 

Obviously, morale was a loose general term for 
many actual conditions. It meant one thing at the 
front, another thing at the rear. It included morals, 
although sometimes a high state of morale could 
exist together with many lapses from the moral 
code. It summed up the general state of mind of 
the troops at any time with regard to the special 
purpose for which the troops were just then in- 
tended. A study of morale gave insight into many 
related factors, including that of morality. The 
young man, as we saw him in the army, had a 
morality of his own, related closely to sport and 
business, but to neither law nor religion. It is a 
moral standard — we cannot possibly mistake that — 
the young man is not in his own mind immoral. 
But it is a standard which makes much of friendship, 



MOKALE AND MORALS 189 

loyalty, fair play, something of honesty, nothing of 
the special code which we usually call ' 'morality." 
It allowed much laxity in sexual relations; it laid 
no stress at all on obedience to military regulations ; 
it had hardly such a word as ''duty." Eeligion to 
the soldier meant habit, or sentiment, or fear, or 
longing; it did not mean a code of morals. The 
attempt to build up a moral standard on a basis 
of duty to one's country or ito one's self was 
largely inadequate. Courage the soldier recognized^ 
and sincerity and self-sacrifice; he did not know 
much of duty. This fact was both the cause and the 
result of military discipline, which made duty an 
external matter of obedience to a million trivial and 
arbitrary rules, rather than to a few definite and out- 
standing principles. The young man has a moral- 
ity of his own in civil life ; he had a slightly different, 
but related morality in the army. It was not the 
conventional morality of society, which rests upon 
the historical standards of the middle-aged. It was 
a type of morality which we must learn to recognize 
and understand for both his benefit and that of so- 
ciety as a whole. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE MORAL GAIN AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 

THE military system, as I have tried to bring 
out in the last chapter, had a definite and 
profound influence on the life and thought of 
the individual soldier. It was so radically different 
from civilian life that this influence became all 
the more striking through contrast. The young man 
has certain moral standards and habits in civil life, 
some of which became intensified, while others al- 
tered in the army. The millions of young men who 
went through the military regime during the war 
have brought this influence back into civilian life 
with them, even though it is attenuated by enviro- 
ment and although they have largely returned to 
their former, pre-military habits. War and danger 
brought out certain characteristics and occasioned 
others. These new reactions of character were not, 
as the pacifists would have it, all bad; neither were 
they all good, as was generally proclaimed in patri- 
otic fashion while the war was going on. Some in- 
fluences were good and some were bad, while almost 
every man in the service would necessarily respond 
to both kinds. The military system itself caused 
or brought to light certain good and bad traits 
which appeared clearly enough in the average sol- 
dier after he had been in the army even a few 
months. It may be worth while to develop some 

190 



MOKAL GAIN AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 191 

of these at a little length, not scientifically nor 
psychologically, but simply and directly as they 
strike the soldier himself. 

We saw at the front, as the experience of other 
armies had indicated, that the average man has in 
him the stuff of which heroes are made. Not merely 
the farmer or backwoodsman, but the men who fol- 
lowed prosaic city occupations, were ready to sacri- 
fice themselves for their comrades and their coun- 
try. The barber and the shipping clerk were as 
frequent winners of the D. S. C. as any others in 
our huge heterogeneous army. Heroism was evoked 
by the need, by the fact that it was the expected re- 
sponse, the response of thousands of others. The 
crowd mind produced heroism out of the most un- 
expected material. War created some of the hero- 
ism which we saw; it merely evoked some which was 
already latent, ready for the call. The stretcher- 
bearer, exposing himself to the severest fire to carry 
his precious burden to safety; the battalion runner 
bearing his message through the barrage and then 
coming back again to bring the answer; the machine 
gunner, carrying his heavy weapon on his back to 
an advanced position where he could establish it ef- 
fectively; the infantryman, advancing against 
machine-gun fire, or digging in under attack from 
heavy artillery or aeroplanes; the engineer, digging 
away debris or laying bridges in plain sight of the 
enemy, with his rifle laid near by to use in case 
ot an attack— I might enumerate hundreds of such 
duties m which courage, loyalty, and endurance were 
exhibited by men who performed exceptional acts of 
bravery and devotion, volunteering for difficult 
service or carrying on in the face of overwhelming 



192 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN- IN FRANCE 

odds. All soldiers were afraid, but in the perform- 
ance of their duty practically all soldiers learned to 
overcome fear and attend to their jobs in the face 
of every obstacle and every danger. 

We felt that travel, with its attendant contact 
with other customs, language and people, would 
broaden our soldiers mentally and tend to break 
down the provincialism which has been often noticed 
in America, as well as in many other countries. 
Only a small minority of our men were equipped, 
either in knowledge or in attitude, to take advantage 
of the opportunities offered. Museums meant com- 
paratively little to them, mediaeval cathedrals not 
much more, Roman walls or ruins nothing at all. 
Scenery did not mean as much as some of us thought 
it should, forgetting that scenery looks entirely dif- 
ferent to a man who rides past it and another who 
walks through it. Altogether, knowledge of France, 
England and Germany made, on the whole, not for 
a greater appreciation of foreign lands, but instead 
for a great appreciation of America. 

The fact is that the boys grew homesick. Most 
of them were only boys in years, and practically 
all of them were reduced to the boyish level of 
thought by the general irresponsibility, thought- 
lessness, and dependency of army life. They were 
like boys in a military school, very often, rather than 
men engaged in the grim business of modern war. 
To these boys absence from home brought a higher 
aippreciation of home. This was often a true evalua- 
tion, in the face of previous neglect and under- 
estimation; sometimes it may have been a senti- 
mentalizing of a home that had never really meant 
very much. But in the danger, the monotony, and 



MOEAL GAIN AND LOSS OP THE SOLDIER 193 

the distance, the soldiers grew to higher apprecia- 
tion of their own homes and their home-land as 
well. 

Their complaints were often ridiculous enough. 
They objected to the backwardness, the lack of sani- 
tation, the absence of bathing facihties in the French 
villages. These were true enough, as far as they 
went, although I know personally that they can be 
matched in many details even in prosperous and en- 
lightened America. They objected to the French 
climate, with the damp cold of its winters, not car- 
ing to remember that certain parts of our own 
Pacific coast suffer from a rainy season, too. This 
complaint becomes still more valueless when we 
remember how the boys grumbled about the heat 
of the Texas border, in fact, how soldiers not in 
action will always find a source of complaint in the 
weather, whatever kind of weather it may be. As 
G-eneral O'Eyan remarked in his famous definition 
of a soldier, ''A soldier is a man who always wants 
to be somewhere else than where he is.^^ This 
restlessness accounts for some of the complaints 
which we are apt to take a bit too seriously. A 
more real complaint was the language difficulty. 
Soldier French was a wonderful thing, consisting 
of the names of all ordinary things to eat and 
drink, together with a few common expressions, such 
as '^toute de suite" (always pronounced 'Hoot 
sweet"), and ''combien." This prevented easy 
icommunication, even with such French people as 
were encountered. Few of the soldiers had any op- 
portunity to use even their little French on respect- 
able, middle-class French families, especially not on 
young men or girls. All these grievances, real and 



194 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN^ IN FEANCE 

fancied, put the soldier out of ease in France and 
made him appreciate America so much the better. 
The sacrifices they were making for America, the 
service they were rendering her, united with the 
home-sickness of a stranger in a strange land to 
increase the devotion and respect of Americans for 
America. 

I need not refer especially to the rather mixed 
gain in religious attitude, as I have already de- 
voted a chapter to that subject. I must, however, 
repeat one point I mentioned there, the meaning of 
physical sacrifice as these men saw it and practised 
it in the army. It was the outcome of their courage, 
their dash, their enthusiasm, that when the time of 
stress came ordinary men offered their lives for 
their friends and their country. The soldier at the 
front equaled or exceeded the forgetfulness of self 
of the fireman or the life-saver in time of peace. 
This lesson of self -forgetfulness, of self-sacrifice, was 
one of the great impressions made by the war upon 
the best men it influenced, and one which touched in 
its way even the most thoughtless and careless of all 
the soldiers who had their hour at the front. 

This brought ou,t the group solidarity of the 
American army in stronger relief. The fine thing 
about morale at the front, as I have outlined it, 
was the mutual confidence which it called out in 
every breast. The pride in his own company, his 
regiment, his division, in the American army as 
a whole, which held a man to his duty under fire 
and impelled him to resist the almost overwhelming 
influence of a sudden attack of panic, made for 
loyalty at the rear as well and formed one basis 
for the whole-hearted return of the young men into 



MOKAL GAIN" AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIEK 195 

civilian society after the war. Pride in one's divi- 
sion meant also pride in one's state; pride in the 
United States Army meant pride in the United 
States. Self-sacrifice, devotion, heroism, — ^all these 
were profound lessons for any man, young or old, 
a lesson which American democracy can profitably 
utilize in the daily humdrum of American life. 

It was surprising how constantly our expectations 
were disappointed by the actual facts of the men 
in the service. Most books and articles since the 
war and all of those before the war were written 
on a theoretical basis, and every one approached 
the facts with a theoretical view. But the theory 
was proved wrong in so many instances that I am 
making the present study entirely empirical, leaving 
theory out altogether as more of a pitfall than an 
advantage. For one thing, I had expected war to 
exert a directly brutalizing influence on the soldier. 
This was never evident at all except in the actual 
stress of battle when killing was a daily necessity, 
and human life, although the most valuable asset of 
the contending forces, was still held cheaply enougli 
to be used up at a terrific rate. Men could not stop 
there to pity every corpse; they had to save their 
own lives and at the same time to win the war. 
But the effect wore off quickly; probably it left no 
result at all except on men with a previous tendency 
to brutality or crime. I remember the thrill of 
horror which went through Le Mans and the entire 
A. E. F. in April 1919, when a railroad accident 
occurred near our post and a group of soldiers 
and sailors on furlough were injured, some of them 
fatally. We forgot all about the fact that these men 
had risked death in entering the service, that the 



196 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN" IN" FKANOE 

few of them in this accident were the smallest 
fraction of a day's toll at the front if the war 
had continued. We melted in sympathy, and the 
French population of Le Mans did the same. 

The men were not brutalized, contrary to expect^i- 
tion. Human life was held cheaply under excep- 
tional circumstances and evidently the men felt that 
they were exceptional. But the men did become ac- 
customed to the use of firearms, and those already 
brutalized were given the knowledge and the means 
for crimes of violence. The carelessness with which 
men used and flung about all kinds of deadly weapons 
shocked those of us with a sense of responsibility; 
it was part of their boyish heedlessness in the midst 
of the fierce game they were playing. They threw 
their discarded rifles in a heap by the first-aid post 
when they went back to hospital; they even played 
catch with hand-grenades, sometimes with most seri- 
ous results. Once I met a pair of Australians out 
hunting rabbits with their high-powered rifles, in a 
place where hundreds of men were passing hourly 
by the much-traveled road. When I remonstrated 
with them, they only replied, "Oh, well, we haven't 
anything else to do. And we know how to shoot 
without hurting anybody." 

But with all these real character acquisitions on 
the part of the men in the service, and with the 
lack of that brutalizing which many theorists had 
feared, at the same time certain moral losses were 
occasioned by the military system. I shall not enter 
into the question of sexual morality here, partly 
because I have discussed it in the previous chapter, 
and partly because it was not distinctly the product 
of the army. The sexual standards of the young 



MORAL GAIN" AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 197 

men in the army were much the same as those of 
young men everywhere, with some modifications 
through discipline. But to the man who has served 
in any army at any time, the outstanding moral 
weakness of the soldier is his entire disregard of 
the rights of property. The sense of property, so 
strong in civilian life, which is implanted so care- 
fully into the little child, seems lost in the first month 
of a man's army life. One brigade headquarters I 
knew in France was established in a fine chateau, 
with large grounds surrounded by a high wooden 
fence. At the same time, the men of the nearest 
unit were living in barns and attics, with no light 
or heat of any kind in their quarters. The result 
was that the fence disappeared, little by little. No- 
body ever saw the culprits, but I had reliable in- 
formation that the men billeted in that village had 
all the heat they needed. When we left the area, 
about half the fence was gone, and I have little 
doubt it vanished entirely during the occupancy of 
the next division. 

I can still hear the indignation of the driver of 
my ''tin Lizzie" when the precious lamps were 
stolen out of our car and we had to drive home ten 
miles in the dark. Of course, lamps were scarce, 
having to be shipped from the States, and the thief 
undoubtedly drove an army car like ours. But a 
few days later after a visit to the city my driver 
reported back in triumph — he had found another 
machine parked in a side street and "salvaged" the 
lights. I tried to make him return them, but 
for once he proved insubordinate. It was only an- 
other army car; the other fellow had probably got 
them the same way; he could ^ot identify the car, 



198 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

anyway. Then came the finishing stroke when we 
tried the lights and fonnd them burned out! The 
other driver had left them in as a blind. My driver 
felt a sense of personal injury, as though he had 
been directly cheated in a legitimate business deal. 
And practically any soldier would have agreed with 
him. 

The men ''found" whatever they needed if it was 
not issued to them properly, because property had 
no meaning to them in the army. They owned 
nothing whatever; even their clothes, food and lodg- 
ing belonged to Uncle Sam. When their clothes 
wore out, they were replaced; when the company's 
weekly supply of food was eaten up, more was 
forthcoming. Rifles fallen into disrepair were ex- 
changed for good ones; shoes were sent to the 
salvage depot to be repaired and then issued to an- 
other man. Equipment lost at the front or in the 
hospital was reissued without question. Therefore 
the enlisted man felt a community sense of owner- 
ship rather than a personal one. At the same time, 
he was constantly in need of one thing or another. 
He needed fire wood, as in the incident of the fence, 
or automobile supplies, as with my driver. The 
■legend even goes that the Australians, famous in 
their ability to care for their own units, have been 
known to take an entire field kitchen, with the food 
still cooking, from a British unit and make a success- 
ful escape. I know that I have personally seen a 
British colonial soldier in a village near the front 
taking a large mirror with a gilt frame out of a dwell- 
ing house and making off toward his quarters, 
"What are you doing with that?" I asked him. 



MOEAL GAIN AM) LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 199 

' ' Oh, I think we can use it, ' ' was his unembarrassed 
answer. 

The soldier learned to disregard law, just as he 
learned to disregard property. Discipline meant 
obedience to constant minute surveillance. It meant 
getting up at reveille, rolling his blankets in just 
such a way, reporting at roll call, lining up for mess, 
working at whatever menial tasks he might be de- 
tailed to do by the sergeant, asking for a pass when 
he wanted to go to the nearest city, submitting his 
mail to censorship, getting a day off for sickness 
only after lining up for "sick call," and finally 
going to bed at night as soon as the bugle sounded 
''taps." These men were not trained soldiers, ac- 
ouatomed to such a system; they were healthy 
American boys in whom this constant subjection to 
external control meant the immediate seeds of re- 
volt. Autonomy meant then the evasion of the law. 
A man could assert his individuality only in such 
ways as going absent without leave, wearing a 
serge uniform (not regulation for private soldiers), 
or gambling away his last month's scanty pay. 
Add to this his constant contact with officers, who, if 
they had to bear a heavy burden of responsibility 
and were forced to pay for all the things the en- 
listed man received for nothing, still were not sub- 
ject to many of the restrictions which he found 
most galling. The test of manly independence came 
to be simply ''getting away with it." If a man 
was caught in an infraction of the rules he had to 
take his punishment; if he was not detected or not 
convicted he was a successful soldier. This ap- 
plied, for example, to a trip to Paris, the golden 



200 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FKANCE 

dream of every American soldier. For a long time 
this was strictly forbidden, although later three- 
day leaves to Paris were allowed to a certain number 
of men. Yet thousands of Americans saw the lovely 
and forbidden city unofficially. They got leave to 
Versailles, and rode into Paiis daily by street car. 
They took the wrong train, ostensibly by accident, 
and had to change trains at Paris, dropping out of 
sight for a day or two meanwhile. They borrowed 
the travel orders of other men and used them over, 
risking detection. Neither the extreme harshness 
'of the Paris military police nor the menace of 
their own angry captains could keep them from the 
enticing adventure. It was their boyishness, com- 
bined with their lack of respect for the law itself, 
that led them into such devious modes of disobedi- 
ence. ''If you know how, you can get away with 
murder," was the usual apology — further excuse 
was not needed. 

Among officers a similar tendency showed itself 
in a different way. The officer was not limited in 
the most petty ways which irritated the men, al- 
though he also could not take a trip to Paris with- 
out proper travel orders and could not absent him- 
self from duty without special permission. But the 
officer likewise grew to disregard the law essentially, 
even while he obeyed it most carefully in its minutiae. 
An officer was bound by his signature on written 
documents. A request coming from the sergeant 
had to be endorsed by the lieutenant, with his rea- 
sons if he did not favor granting it. It would 
then pass on to the captain, the major, the colonel, 
and if necessary also the brigadier and the major 
general. Having passed through military channels 



MORAL GAIN AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 201 

for its consideration, it oame back again by the same 
ronte until it reached the originator. This system 
made at once for diffusion of responsibility, or, to 
use the familiar army term, ''passing the buck." 
The first man who approved the request had no re- 
sponsibility, as it was approved likewise by his 
superiors; the later endorsers had none, as they 
had signed it on his recommendation, assuming his 
knowledge of the facts. Nobody could be held re- 
sponsible and every one was careful to evade respon- 
sibihty wherever he could. Naturally, this made for 
endless delays, for coniplications interminable when 
a previous order had to be rescinded for any reasons 
whatever, for evasion in case of difficulty or doubt. 
It meant fundamentally the disregard of law, ex- 
pressed by the soldier in disobedience and by the of- 
ficer in evasion. 

The military regime likewise tended to break down 
habits of regular industry. During the war there 
was the alternation of short periods of intense 
and exhausting activity at the front and longer ones 
of as complete rest as the men could obtain at 
the rear. It was a reversion to the life of the 
•savage, busy by spells at hunting or war, with rest 
and languor between. The entire exhaustion, phys- 
ical and mental, after a ''spell in the trenches" 
demanded complete relaxation afterward, while 
there was always a little necessary work in the way 
of drill, reequipment and inspection. After the war 
was over, the drill went on in still larger doses but 
without the incentive of returning to the trenches 
again afterward. This alternation of work and rest 
together with the general rebellion against routine, 
broke down the habit of consistent work which 



202 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

is ibuilt up with such effort and such induce- 
ments in civil life. Boys do not want to work until 
they are taught to do so and given inducements in 
the form of money and the things money will buy. 
GBut the soldiers, so boyish in their life and their 
feelings, had few such inducements given them. 
Their universal experience after leaving the army 
was that it took a tremendous effort of will to 
return to the routine and responsibility of a civilian 
occupation. 

Exceptions existed, of course, to every general- 
ization in this chapter, as they do to any generaliza- 
tion of any kind. But the exceptions speedily lifted 
themselves out of the ranks by promotion, and 
were therefore covered by the different influences 
on the officers and the higher ranks of non-com- 
missioned officers. And I feel that even these excep- 
tional men who retained their respect for law and 
property, their habits of regTilar industry, did so 
only in comparison with the general break-down, 
that even they felt a certain loosening of the stand- 
ards which they had possessed in civilian life. 

Army life developed a new series of moral values 
and moral reactions. It brought out virtues which 
were latent or non-existent in civil life; it reduced 
others to impotence. It produced love of country, 
of home, and of Ood; it brought forth courage, 
loyalty, self-sacrifice, the extreme of heroism, in 
such numbers and such variety that they seemed 
commonplace. It did not brutalize any who were 
not very ready for such a process. But at the same 
time, it destroyed the citizen's respect for law and 
order, his respect for property, his habit of hard 
and persistent work. It made him, for the time 



MOKAL GAIN" AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 203 

being, a lazy hero; a jovial, careless, and lovable 
lawbreaker. It brought out exactly the qualities 
which are least necessary in civil life, and injured 
those most necessary; it took the student, the work- 
ingman, the farmer, and made of him the doughboy. 
Army life was opposed directly to the whole tenor 
of democracy, the regime where men control them- 
selves, where they work through ambition and desire 
for success, and where they strive to accumulate 
property of their own, at the same time respecting 
the law and the property of others. Army life 
meant a break in the lives^of millions of young 
Americans, an interruption of the steady develop- 
ment of their characters and habits, a reversal of 
their tendencies and a postponement of their am- 
bitions. 

I feel that it is a great evidence of the essential 
soundness of American manhood that these millions 
have returned to civil life, in most cases to their 
former circles and their former occupations, with 
so little difficulty. Society helped them at the 
moment by the splendid reception home, by the 
plaudits, the speeches, and the parades. It helped 
them also to obtain positions and then left them to 
find themselves. Fortunately, after a brief transi- 
tion most of them did find themselves, and the ex- 
soldiers to-day are back in every type of work as 
before. The former captain may sell you a suit; 
the holder of a D. S. C. may wait on you at the 
restaurant. They have overcome the restlessness, 
the carelessness, the thrill ; they are civilians again. 
But here and there the seeds fell on different soil; 
here and there a former soldier has not found him- 
self again. We see him most often among the 



204 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN^ FRANCE 

wounded and gassed, who cannot fit into industry so 
easily, and whose sufferings have often affected their 
mentality and always their point of view. America 
has wasted criminally precious years of these young 
ruined lives, in not bringing to them instantly the 
full care and service of a grateful nation. On the 
other hand, industry has made little effort to ab- 
sorb our soldiers; I have seen men with trades 
selling fruit from push-carts because there was no 
other work at hand. I have seen a jobless boy, 
honestly trying to make a little money by selling 
trinkets in the street and driven away by a patriotic 
store-keeper, who felt that he had done his duty 
by buying Liberty Bonds and need not bother about 
the man who had fought his battles for him. The 
soldier who cannot return to civil life is a rare ex- 
ception, but he is an exception caused in an unstable 
youth by our military or our industrial system. 
Our nation, which profijted by that army, must 
remember for good every weakest individual whose 
sweat and blood poured forth to make that army 
great. 



CHAPTER SIV 

THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM 

DURING the war we were so stunned by its 
suddenness and vastness that we felt it would 
shatter all former systems of philosophy, 
that men would need a new philosophy of life after 
the war, just as they did after the Renaissance or the 
epoch-making discoveries of Darwin. This opin- 
ion, natural enough at the time, was certainly ex- 
aggerated. The war did not shatter all ideals; it 
did not create any new ones except the wave of 
spiritualism at present so wide-spread. But it did 
shift emphases, exposed the hoUowness of many 
easy beliefs, and implanted new ideas in minds 
which otherwise might not have been ready for 
them. The soldier really presents the typical re- 
action to the war, while the civilian shows a milder 
type of influence and a smaller degree of change. 
The revaluation of values which is really demanded 
to-day is nothing so fundamental as we thought 
at the time. It is chiefly psychological, that we 
shall understand what is in the mind of the soldier, 
and by that means reach an understanding of the ef- 
fect of the war on society as a whole. The world 
contains in diluted form those same influences which 
show so distinctly on these young men. The prob- 
lem of evil is neither greater nor less than it was be- 
fore the war ; the problem of life and death is no dif- 

205 



206 A JEWISH CHAPLADs" IX FEAXCE 

ferent; the problem of conduct has not changed. 
But certain phases of each of these problems have 
come very strongly to the attention of the world; 
some of them have been branded into the conscious- 
ness of the soldier. Just as the soldier has a view- 
point toward American ideals, which America would 
do well to heed in working out her programs for the 
era after the war, so the Jewish soldier has his own 
viewpoint toward Judaism, which all who are in- 
terested in our people and our religion need to 
understand and utilize for the best development of 
our rehgious programs in the days that are just 
ahead. 

It is hard to call the soldier a progressive in 
religion when he had so few theories about the 
matter. But he was certainly not a traditionalist. 
Eeligious ideas and practices had to satisfy his im- 
mediate needs or they had no meaning to him at 
all. This covered all cant words, all ready-made 
formulas, whether as ancient as the Talmud or as 
comparatively recent as reform Judaism. The an- 
swer of a tweKth century Jew of Spain or a nine- 
teenth century Jew of Germany were on an equal- 
ity to him ; if either solved the problems of a young 
American at war it was acceptable. The soldier 
was willing to accept old answers to new questions 
if they were cogent ; on the other hand, he was quite 
as willing to consider a new and revolutionary 
theory. He possessed that rare attribute, the open 
mind ; on the narrow but keen basis of his own mental 
experience he grasped and estimated soundly the 
new ideas and the old. 

The soldier enjoyed ceremonies that reminded him 
of home and childhood, but he regarded them largely 



THE JEWISH SOLDIEE AND JUDAISM 207 

as pleasant memories. However deep a meaning 
the symbols might possess, the soldier had not the 
background to grasp it. The symbols did not stand 
for enough to solve the problems of his immediate 
life. In the same way, theological concepts, how- 
ever liberal, meant nothing to him practically. The 
liberal theology of reform Judaism might have ap- 
pealed to the mass of the Jewish soldiers if they 
had been interested in it and had made an effort 
to understand it. As it was, liberalism in theology 
meant exactly nothing to them. They were not in- 
terested in theological problems ; they did not care 
what one's opinion might be about the literal in- 
spiration of the Bible or about the coming of the 
Messiah. The liberalism which expressed itself con- 
stantly among the soldiers, and which they brought 
back with them into civil life, was different from 
all this. Grranting your liberalism or your con- 
servatism in regard to beliefs and ceremonies, the 
soldier wanted to know your attitude toward other 
human beings. The liberalism he wanted was social 
and humanitarian. On this plane he had his being. 
This was the type of problem which interested him 
and which he could understand. The soldier felt 
too often that the churches and synagogues were 
dominated by capital, by a narrow social class which 
discriminated against him. Among Jewish soldiers, 
many felt that the religious ideas they might accept 
were expressed in rich reform temples, where they 
themselves would not be acceptable or would not 
feel at home. On the other hand, they did not feel 
at home in the little orthodox synagogues where 
their fathers offered up their daily prayers. They 
did not understand the Hebrew ritual uttered there, 



208 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

nor the devotional attitude which was there ex- 
pressed. 

But all this is not reaching directly the synagogue 
itself. The young men, the former soldiers, are not 
the trustees of our temples and synagogues; they 
are not a majority of our members; they are not 
often to be found in the pews, where we might see 
their response to a particular service or a particular 
sermon. If we are not very careful, the churches 
and synagogues will lose entirely the inspiration of 
their youthful vigor and find themselves tied en- 
tirely to the generation which has passed into middle 
age and is becoming old. We must call to the 
young men in the voice of youth, with the view- 
point and on the plane which they understand and 
on which they may respond. That means that we 
must be willing to accept new conclusions to new 
problems if these conclusions seem to fit the new 
times'. That means also that we must have an 
aggressive attitude toward social and economic 
problems. This . alone can make liberalism re- 
ligious and make religion concrete, applicable to 
the needs of the latest era, the era after the world 
war. Without it, religion will remain moribund, 
liberalism irreligious. Religious bodies must give 
an equal hearing to both the conservative and the 
radical, must show a definite platform of religious 
and moral work on which the two can unite. That 
was done during the war. All groups in American 
Jewry, orthodox, conservative and reform, were as- 
sociated in the Jewish Welfare Board and still work 
together on the Joint Distribution Committee for 
the relief of Jewish war sufferers. All groups in 
American life, Jew and non-Jew alike, met and 



THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM 209 

worked together in the United War Work campaign, 
to care for the soldiers in our emergency. But the 
young men, no longer soldiers, need us as badly 
now, while we, the churches and the synagogues, 
need them more than ever, with their new experi- 
ence and their newfound manhood. What they need 
and what we need, too, is that we learn to cooperate 
on a common platform of action for their benefit 
now. If we want them, if we want to be at one with 
them, we must have a social program, a liberal 
attitude to life and especially to its most immediate 
economic problems, a wilhngness to sink differences 
of opinion that we may meet for practical effort 
and genuine progress. 

The boys in the service became largely social- 
ized through the tremendous, constant work of the 
welfare agencies. They felt the value of the Y. M. 
C. A. or other welfare hut, not only for the en- 
tertainments, dances and canteen, but just as much 
as a center for the soldier community, a place to 
write, to read, to play games, to meet their friends. 
Since their return they have turned to such institu- 
tions as the Y. M. C. A., the Y. M. H. A. and the 
rest, to find the club life, the community spirit, 
which they had in the welfare hut in camp or city 
at home and abroad. This need of the young men 
for a social center and a social life is a common 
need of all America. Every village needs a social 
center to further its growth into a finer culture and 
a more united citizenship. Every Jewish commun- 
ity large enough to have a little social life of its own 
needs a community center where that life can flour- 
ish and be guided in desirable and constructive 
channels. The expansion of the Jewish Welfare 



210 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

Board to join and assist the activities of the National 
Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred As- 
sociations is a logical one, growing out of the similar 
needs of the same young men in war and peace. The 
furtherance of social centers for Jewish commun- 
ities, for other groups of citizens who possess a 
common heritage or common background, and for a 
whole town where the town is not too large, is a piece 
of work in which the soldiers will participate and 
which their very existence among us should suggest 
to the rest of the community. The return of the 
soldier may assist us more than we expect in social- 
izing the Jewish community. The social spirit we 
once showed in his behalf, the social education we 
gave him while in the service, will return to benefit 
us all if we convert the two into Jewish social 
life. Such a socializing will cut across congrega- 
tional or sectional lines, across lines of birth and 
wealth, and unite the Jewish community in America, 
just as the same process will eventually, if carried 
far enough, weld together all the divergent social 
forces of America itself. 

The need for personal religion at the front was a 
temporary need, or rather a temporary expression 
of a universal human yearning. It is now almost 
forgotten by the boys themselves, certainly by 
the church and the synagogue. Beside the 
liberal and the social demands of the day, there 
exists this mystical longing to be sure of God, 
to know for a certainty that He will protect 
His dear ones. This universal and eternal need 
was felt for the time by our men in immediate 
danger, in thankfulness, in mourning. Having dis- 
covered it once, they still feel it when the occasion 



THE JEWISH SOLDIEE AND JUDAISM 211 

comes. Here, however, there seems little likelihood 
of their contribution being accepted. The union of 
the social and mystical elements, even at different 
times and for different occasions, seems more than 
any human institution can accomplish. If the sol- 
dier, in tune with the urge of the age, demands a 
social and a liberal response from the synagogue, 
he may get it in a large number of cases. The 
mystical element he will not ask for, and his in- 
articulate mood, now hardly evident, will certainly 
evoke no response. 

One thing certainly the young men feel, which 
American Judaism is accepting from them. While 
the young Jew is wholly sympathetic to Zionism, he 
hardly ever feels that Zionism is the center or the 
conclusion of the Jewish problem. Zionism, as a 
movement, has brought to fruition much of the 
latent love of the young Jew for his people and 
his religion. But the Jewish soldier, or the same 
boy as a civilian, is not interested chiefly in solving 
the economic or the cultural problems of Palestine. 
He responds also to the similar problems among the 
Jews of America. Zionism is not enough for him; 
he must have Judaism as well. He and all 
of us are compelled to confront the spiritual and 
moral problems of the new world after the war. 

The young man does not know, and the synagogue 
does not always show him, that the very things 
he demands most urgently are inherent in Judaism, 
especially in those great prophets whose words still 
ring forth with a youthful fervor. The unfaltering 
search for new truth, the recognition of the poor 
and the weak, the unity of all groups in the com- 
munity, the triumphant search for God and finding 



212 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

of God — all these the young Jew wants and the 
prophets have given us. This aspect of the problem, 
then, becomes one of leadership, to interpret our 
Judaism in terms which express the life of the new 
day and to show the young men that their dearest 
longings are part of the ancient Jewish heritage. 
The antiquity of the prophetic summons is no dis- 
advantage to the young men if it answers their per- 
sonal need. It is of the greatest advantage to the 
synagogue in responding to the call of the great days 
after the war. Those ancient responses to the 
errors and crimes of mobs and despots in the Orient 
contain principles whose vitality is not impaired by 
the passage of time. It needs but the skill and the 
courage to apply them again, as in prophetic times, 
to the western world in the twentieth century. 

War gave the world a new angle of vision on 
life and death, on good and bad. The deepest im- 
press of this new viewpoint is on those men who 
were themselves at the front, who underwent the 
most extreme phase of it in their own persons, but 
some traces have spread throughout the entire west- 
ern civilization. America must realize it as Europe 
does; Judaism and Christianity alike are entering, 
for good or bad, a new period. The world has 
changed in some respects ; we who see the world have 
changed far more. In facing the future, with its 
political, its social, its moral problems, we need 
a new fullness of insight into the young men whose 
lives have changed and whose souls expanded over- 
night, even though they remain in externals the 
boys they were. We need a new intellectual content, 
covering not only the new map of Europe and Asia, 
but also the new ideas and ideals which swept the 



THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM 213 

world for a time, as though they were to be eternal. 
Above all, we must have complete honesty in facing 
the thrilling challenge of the immediate future. We 
do not need a- new form of Judaism any more than 
we need a new type of government in America. 
We are confronted by the demand to adapt Ameri- 
canism and Judaism to the changing demands of a 
changing era, to find among the temporary and 
evanescent elements in both those things which have 
permanent usefulness for any demand and any era. 
We need ideals of the past, indeed, but only such 
ideals as have survived the past, as apply fully to 
the present, as will aid in building up a future of 
promise and achievement for the Jew. Judaism is 
on trial to-day. If we answer the need of the young 
man, he will be the loyal, active Jew for to-day and 
to-morrow. If we ignore him, whether through un- 
certainty, ignorance or pride, he will not come to 
us and we shall not be going after him. Judaism 
needs the young man; it needs equally his great 
ideals, social and mystical as well. The test will re- 
sult in a finer and more effective faith only if 
we respond to it bravely and honestly, in the very 
spirit of the soldier himself. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE JEWISH SOLDIEK AND ANTI-SEMITISM 

DURING the war we felt that prejudice between 
men of different groups and different faiths 
was lessening day by day, that our common 
enthusiasm in our common cause had brought Cath- 
olics, Protestants and Jews nearer together on a 
basis of their ardent Americanism. Especially we 
who were at the front felt this in the first flush 
of our cooperation, our mutual interest and our 
mutual helpfulness. After you have stood beside a 
man in the stress of front-line work, have shared 
a blanket with him, have seen him suffer like a hero 
or die like a martyr, his origin, his family and his 
faith become less important than the manhood of 
the man himself. More than once I have said, 
talking to soldier audiences of Jewish or of mixed 
faith: "After this war no man can knowingly call 
the Jew a coward again. If you ever hear such 
a statement, you can be sure that our detractor is 
not an honest bigot, as may have been the case in 
the past ; he is either ignorant or malicious. '' 

We knew that and our comrades knew it. The 
men at the front knew very little about the whole- 
hearted participation of every section of our vast 
population, Jew and non-Jew together, in the cam- 
paigns for production, Liberty Bonds, the United 
War Work campaign, and all the rest. That record 

214 



THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND ANTI-SEMITISM 215 

is a permanent one and is known to every man who 
did his duty in ''the rear lines'^ back in the United 
States during the war. But those who served over- 
seas know the record the Jew made for himself at 
the front, his promotions, his decorations, his wound- 
ings and his deaths. They know that differences 
of religion and race counted not at all in the Amer- 
ican army, that our heroes and our effective, able 
soldiers came from all religions and all races. With 
what high hopes we entered the war ; with what fine 
fervor we saw it end ! We felt that our efforts had 
insured something more of liberty for the oppressed 
of all the world, for Czech and Armenian, Alsatian 
and Belgian, Pole and Jew. 

Perhaps the greatest disappointment of all to 
the fighters and the sufferers has been the survival 
and the occasional revival of the old hatreds in a 
more intense form. I am thinking of the many 
national and group hatreds and antagonisms which 
have tormented the world in the last years, and 
especially of one of them, that against the Jews. 
The oppression of the autocratic regime of the Czar 
has been carried on by the free nation of Poland; 
the pogroms of the Black Hundred have been re- 
vived in the Ukraine, where the slaughter of war 
was doubled by the slaughter of peace. Hungary 
has seen its "white terror," where Jews were 
murdered as Bolshevists and Bolshevists as Jews. 
Austria and Germany have seen a strengthen- 
ing of the political anti-Semitism of pre-war 
times, here blaming the Jews for beginning the 
war, and there for ending it. Finally the move- 
ment has been carried over into the freest and most 
intelligent of nations, and some apologists for it 



216 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE 

have appeared even in England and America. Here 
the Anti-Semites can work by neither political nor 
legal means, but through a campaign of slander 
they strive to weaken the morale of the Jew and 
injure his standing before the mass of his fellow 
citizens. 

I shall not turn aside to deal, even for a moment, 
with the mass of accusations against the Jew, trivial 
or grave as the case may be. They have been ade- 
quately answered by Jew and non-Jew, especially in 
the address on ''The 'Protocols,' Bolshevism and the 
Jews," by ten national organizations of American 
Jews on December 1, 1920, and the subsequent pro- 
tests against anti-Semitism by a distinguished 
group of non-Jewish Americans, notably President 
Woodrow Wilson, former President William 
Howard Taf t and William Cardinal 'Oonnell. The 
only one of these accusations with which I can 
properly deal in this place, and one on which my fel- 
low-soldiers will agree with me in every detail, is the 
revival of the ancient slander against the patriot- 
ism and courage of the Jew. We are reading, not 
for the first time in history, but for almost the first 
time in the English language, that the Jews are 
not patriots in their respective nations, that they 
all have a super-national allegiance to a Jewish 
international conspiracy, that their real loyalty is 
to this other group within and above the state, even 
to the extent of treachery or anarchy against their 
own governments. We feel the disgrace, the pathos 
of such a charge just after the war when Jews died 
with non- Jews that America might be safe, at a time 
when Jews even more than non-Jews are enduring 
the dread aftermath of war, the famine, the poverty 



THE JEWISH SOLDIEE AM) ANTI-SEMITISM 217 

and the epidemics, in Eastern and Central Europe. 
It is the sort of charge which only facts can answer, 
■the kind of facts which are present in this book, 
as in every official or personal story of the war by 
men who took a personal part in the war. Prejudice 
is too largely the product of those who gained by 
the war but did not personally enter the ranks. 
The men who know, the men who fought together 
and bled together, have a different story. 

America has, in fact, too much fairness as well as 
too much humanity, to listen to any such move- 
ment of partisan hatred or bigotry. I quote the 
statement of over a hundred distinguished "citizens 
of G-entile birth and Christian faith," referred to 
above : 

' ' The loyalty and patriotism of our fellow citizens 
of the Jewish faith is equal to that of any part 
of our people, and requires no defense at our hands. 
From the foundations of this Republic down to 
the recent World War, men and women of Jewish 
ancestry and faith have taken an honorable part in 
building up this great nation and maintaining its 
prestige and honor among the nations of the world. 
There is not the slightest justification, therefore, for 
a campaign of anti-Semitism in this country." 

In this connection, we can recall the words written 
by Theodore Eoosevelt, at that time President, in 
1905, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of 
the first landing of Jews in what is now the United 
States : 

"I am iglad to be able to say that while the Jews of 
the United States have remained loyal to their faith 
and their race traditions, they are engaged in 
generous rivalry with their fellow-citizens of other 



218 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN- IN FRANCE 

denominations in advancing the interests of our 
common country. This is true, not only of the de- 
scendants of the early settlers and those of American 
birth, but of a great and constantly increasing pro- 
portion of those who have come to our shores within 
the last twenty-five years as refugees reduced to 
the direst straits of penury and misery. In a few 
years, men and women hitherto utterly unaccus- 
tomed to any of the privileges of citizenship have 
moved mightily upward toward the standard of 
loyal, self-respecting American citizenship ; of that 
citizenship which not merely insists upon its rights, 
but also eagerly recognizes its duty to do its full 
share in the material, social and moral advancement 
of the nation." 

It would be beside the issue to refer to the Jewish 
participation in American life during the past, if 
that also had not been brought up as an accusation. 
But the records exist, and the facts are conclusive. 
In the American revolution forty-six Jews fought 
under George Washington, out of the little Jewish 
population of about two thousand in the United 
States at that time. The leading Jews of New York 
and Newport left those cities because they were 
patriots and would not carry on their business under 
British rule. Haim Salomon, the Jemsh banker of 
New York and later of Philadelphia, was among 
those who rendered the greatest service in financ- 
ing the infant nation. In the Civil War ten thou- 
sand Jewish soldiers of whom we to-day possess the 
records served in the Union and Confederate armies. 
Each generation of immigrants has been most eager 
to learn the English language and American ways, 
to take advantage to the full of American liberty 



THE JEWISH SOLDIER AM) ANTI-SEMITISM 219 

and opportunity, to make a home for their families 
in a free land and to help that land maintain its 
freedom. The World War was for the Jews, as 
for all Americans, simply the culmination, bringing 
out most strongly the high lights in American life. 
Heroes and slackers, loyal and disloyal, showed 
themselves in their true colors during the war. 
And the Jew, like all Americans, showed himself 
in this crisis loyal to America. The Jewish record 
stands on a par with the best record of any group 
of American citizens, of any church or any race. 
Jews of Eussia, whose only contact with their native 
government had fostered hatred and distrust, 
flocked to the colors in America. Jews of American 
birth, like all citizens of American birth, did their 
full duty for their country. 

On this point again, my own facts, clear as they 
aire, need not stand .alone. I can quote Major 
General Eobert Alexander, who commanded, in the 
77th Division, the largest group of Jews in any 
unit of the American Expeditionary Forces: ''I 
found that Hebrew names on the Honor Eoll of the 
division were fully up to the proportion that they 
should have been; in other words, the Hebrew boy 
paid his full share of the price of victory. When 
the time came for recommendations to go in for 
marks of distinction which we were able to give, 
I found there again that the names of the Hebrews 
were as fully represented on that list as the numbers 
in the division warranted, by long odds." 

To-day the Jewish soldier, no longer a soldier or 
a hero, but still a Jew and an American, appeals to 
the American people. Will they suffer such a pro- 
paganda, he wonders, such an attack on him and on 



220 A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FEANCE 

his brothers who still lie overseas, in their American 
graves on foreign soil? Will they tolerate for a 
moment such a venomous and false attack on the 
defenders of their nation, on any group, small or 
large, of the boys who rallied to the defense of 
democracy? In the army overseas we felt that 
prejudice was a thing of the past, that only in ig- 
norance or malice could the old serpent lift its head 
aigain. To-day, with all the newer bitterness, we 
feel the same. We know that our soldier comrades 
are loyal still, that America is still America, that as 
we have once defended her we need not now muster 
our arguments or records to defend ourselves 
against her. If the Jew ever needed justification, 
he surely needs it no longer to-day. The Jewish 
soldier has once for all made anti-Semitism im- 
possible among the men who served America in arms, 
and who still in days of quiet continue to serve and 
save their country. 



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